Fairway Aeration

As most of you know, we started our fairway aerification last week and we are on schedule to finish today. Fairway aeration is an important part of our agronomic program. It helps alleviate surface compaction and most of all thatch. We also introduce seed into the profile to promote new growth. One of the things you can help us out with is to keep carts on the path of the holes we are aerating during the day of the process. To perform the procedure, we have to dry the surface out. Because of this and the physical process, the turf becomes extremely dry by the end of the day, therefore the need to keep the golf cars off of the surface until they receive irrigation overnight. We appreciate your help with this.

One of the things you will notice post aeration is some off color of the turf. You will tend to see this in the highly compacted and dry areas. If you look around, the lower moist locations usually do not show the drought signs as much. The fairways will recover and be better off due to the aeration procedure.

Another item that came up this week is better communication with the membership in regards to fairway and tee aeration timing. We have always informed of greens aeration, but moving forward we will add fairway and tee aeration to the monthly calendar. I will also post a blog at the beginning of the month regarding any planned aeration dates.

Remember to fix your ball mark and one other.

Yours in turf,

Stacy L. Wallace, Golf Course Superintendent