Aerification - The Whole Story

Why is it necessary to aerify greens, tees and fairways?  Please view the video.

Spring Aerification

While many of our members are still at their warmer winter homes out of state, our NCC Golf Course Operations staff is preparing the course for the coming season.  Despite 27 degree temperatures, our staff was beginning the first scheduled seasonal topdressing and aerification procedures.  


These men work in every type of weather conditions to serve our membership.  Much of these necessary practices are scheduled and undertaken at times in order to be less visible and impacting to member play.
                                                                      
                                                

           The greens are being aerified.

Greens are topdressed following aerification

Greens are rolled for smoothing the surface

 

The fairways are being topdressed

Fairway topdressing

This photo below is only 10% of what we will apply each time to the fairways

Fairway aerification is following the fairway topdressing.   This places the sand into the soil profile.

Leaves and winter debris must be cleaned for course preparation.

Aerification Process

After postponing our green's aerification for a week  due to ice and snow last week, we began aerifying the greens today.  The cooler weather will have a slowing affect on the recovery of the greens but these processes are necessary so that the surfaces will be healthy during the season.
Green speeds are generally slower for 3-4 days following aerification and topdressings because the sand significantly dulls the mower blades. Eventually the sand works its way off of the turf surface. 
Below are the processes that we use during the aerification process. 

Sand is spread over the green's surface 

The green is aerified.  Sand is injected into the upper end of the soil profile

The surface is mechanically brushed to spread sand into the open holes

Hand brushes are used to make sure the holes are filled level with the turf

 Excess sand laying on the surface of the green is removed using blowers

The greens are  rolled to help level and firm the surfaces.  Aerification generally softens the surface for an initial period until the holes heal and the surface firms.

Firming the Fairways

The North Shore golf courses command a slightly different agronomic management process than other courses that are farther south and west of the city.    The cooler and wetter weather conditions found closer to the lake tend to result in playing conditions that are not as dry as those in other Chicagoland areas.

Most North Shore courses were built 80 to 100 years ago on black clay soils which stay a bit wetter and softer than some of the more recent built clubs that may have a "lighter" soil type that drains and dries at a quicker pace.   Heavy - black -clay soils tend to hold water longer resulting in the fairways being softer than the sand based greens on the red and blue nines. 

 

Clay soils result in standing water after a rainfall

Below are the processes that we have been implementing over the past 4-5 years to provide firmer playing conditions.  Striving for firmer conditions includes a number of agronomic processes.

The process below is the same for the fairways, approaches and tees. 

The fairway, aerification, topdressing and verticle mowing processes are utilized several times each year for the following reasons and to achieve these results:

1. To relieve compacted soils from golf cart traffic
2. To improve the surface dryness of the fairways
3. To increase irrigation & rainfall water infiltration into the soil
4. To reduce the amount of "thatch" in the fairways for improved firmness & less disease
5. To increase oxygen availability to the rootzone of the plant
6. To reduce "wet spots" in the fairways

The complete process includes:

Step 1 - Aerifying the fairways

Dragging the fairways to "bust up" the cores

Verticutting the fairways with the purpose of reducing thatch accumulation & stimulating an upright growth of the turf

This photo below exhibits a verticle mowing reel

The photo below shows the thatch and debris that is removed from the fairway

Blowers are used to collect the thatch debris

Sand topdressing is implemented to assist in firming the fairways, reducing thatch

and making the surface drier

Sand topdressing is brushed into the aerification holes

The final step in the process is mowing the fairways

Notice the sand layer on top of the clay layer.  This photo is from White #4 where we have been most aggressive with our aerificaition and topdressing programs.   What was once our worst fairway is not one of the best as we have been successful in changing the upper part of the rootzone

It takes time to change the soil structure of a golf course.   It also causes an inconvenience to the membership.  Our goal is to provide a balance of an aggressive agronomic program with member access to quality playing conditions.

    

Aerification Video - Why We Aerify

Aerification is one of the most necessary and basic turfgrass management practices.  As the video below illustrates, relieving soil compaction, improving oxygen availability and increasing penetration and percolation within the soil profile are just a few of the benefits of aerifying.  In our case at NCC, aerification also benefits the health of our turf surfaces (especially the greens) by allowing us to remove some of the negative elements that accumulate in the rootzone via the poor irrigation quality water that we use.  The aerification process that we implement today, aides our course conditioning in the future.



Aerification timing and methods vary from course to course depending on any number of factors: tournament schedules, amount of play, irrigation water quality, sand or soil rootzone construction, available sunlight and air movement to the green, weather conditions (cold and heat), etc.  The size of the aerification tines also varies with the desired outcome.  In or fall aerification, we use the larger coring tines that remove the cores from the rootzone.  In the summer months we use "needle" or small solid tines that do not pull out a core. 



The timing of aerification varies at different courses.  I have chosen the mid to latter part of September for four reasons:
1. Even though the weather can still be really favorable for play in the latter part of September, the volume of play decreases after Labor Day.
2. Aerifying while there is still a degree of warmer days allows for the aerification holes to heal and cover quicker.
3. Most significantly, next to aerifying in mid-August, September is the next best time for us at NCC because we have very clean, poa annua free, green's surfaces.  Aerifying later is a more optimum time for poa annua to invade our greens.  Keeping our surfaces clean with a pure stand of bentgrass is a key to our management and course conditioning program.
4. Aerification in the middle to end of September comes after all of the major tournaments at the club



Please take a look at the following video.

Aerifying Greens

                  Action today prepares for quality conditions in the months ahead.

We have aerifying  the fairways this week with solid tines.  This process opens the turf surface without pulling out soil cores.  The main purpose of this is to relieve compaction, reduce the thatch layer and provide open channels for oxygen availability and exchange in the turf rootzone.

Fairways are topdressed with sand for thatch reduction

                                      
This sand will be applied to the fairways to make them "tighter and firmer" over a period of time
                                                                      
We are also deeply solid tining the greens for the same reasons.  These areas will all heal very quickly and will not interfere with play but for several days.  These are the tines we use on the greens
                                                    
 The greens are rolled following the aerification to smooth the surface and it also covers the holes

The holes are less than pencil size one they are rolled

 Notice how the aerification holes allow us to work sand into the older white soil and clay based rootzones of the greens.  This allows for better drainage and air oxygen availability

 Notice the healthy, white roots that are growing in the aerification channels.  This is a very healthy grass plant.  These practices in the spring prepare the turf to endure and survive the stressful summer weather conditions.
                                         

Notice the small dark green circles on the green running from top to bottom in the photo below.  Two of the circles are just to the left of the pennies.  These are the aerification holes from the fall.  The circular areas are greener today because of the air channels we made available to the roots

 

Aerification Process

Aerification will begin on the greens and fairways next Monday the 19th.  The photos below show the aerificaiton and clean-up process that we employ on the greens.

The greens are aerified

The soil plugs are brushed and shoveled into wind rows for collection

The grass and soil plugs are wind-rowed

                                            The greens are then topdressed with sand to  fill in the aerificaiton holes

The sand is worked into the aerification holes via the use of a turf brush

At times the topdressing sand is hand brushed into the holes

The holes are filled to the top with sand

           The greens are rolled to make them smooth

Finally, the greens are mowed

The greens will always be slower following aerification because of the holes and the fact that the topdressing sand immediately dulls the mowers.  It takes a week or so for the sand to totally work down into the turf canopy.  The mowers are sharpened and the speed begins to return to the putting surfaces.