Thanks A Lot Mother Nature!

As many of you are well aware, this has been a cool and wet summer.  The plans of many a superintendent in this region have been either postponed or cancelled all together.  The maintenance crew at RedGate has had to delay the Dryject aerification scheduled for the greens twice because of rain.  More on that cultural practice on October 14th. (hopefully, fingers crossed)

While that has been put on the back burner, there are still things we can do to prepare the greens for the upcoming winter.  A good method to help promote growth and enhance the turf is by verticutting.  That is when you mow the greens in a vertical motion with blades attached to a mower.  The benefits of this are numerous and can vary depending on your depth of cut.  More aggressive, as long as the turf is not under stress, more beneficial.

A Jacobsen Verticutting Unit

Other benefits include removing thatch build-up. Thatch is an accumulation of the organic matter that deposits and decomposes after mowing. Up to 1/2 inch of thatch is okay but anymore than that can affect water and nutrient uptake. The channels created by verticutting aids in the uptake of water, nutrients, and pesticides.  It also allows for better seed-soil contact when overseeding. Bentgrass and Bermuda grass greens have the ability to create new growing points when verticut. The golfers will love how it makes the surface putt true and fast when recovered. The practice is not as disruptive to the turf as aerifying so recovery should be in a few days if its actively growing.

Since we could not aerify this week, I decided to verticut the greens and "reap" some of the previously discussed benefits.  There are many ways you can perform the task but the steps we took are as follows:

1.  Verticut greens at a depth equal to the height of the turf stand. (1/8th inch or .125)  This is not too aggressive but removes a lot of material. 
2. Blow the material that was left on the green off to prepare the surface to be mowed
3. Mow greens with heavy solid rollers attached to smooth out the surface
4. Apply top dressing that further smooths the surface and also helps with thatch control

Typically you would either work the sand in with a drag mat or brush, but we applied the top dressing light enough there was no need. Plus you would have to add an extra step of rolling greens to smooth the surface again. You could also water in sand with the irrigation system but with over an inch of rain forecasted for the evening I let Mother Nature do it for me.  She owes me one...

Verticut mowing grooves in two directions

Alex blowing off #7

Adding Top Dressing to #9 Green