Aeration of Greens
For the last couple of days, on June 5th and 6th the aeration of the greens took place. This is a very important maintenance job that we must carry out once a year to guarantee the quality of the greens.
The greens on a golf course continually suffer from the weight of the player’s footprints, the weight of the machinery used and the impact from balls that hit the ground. Performing this task helps us to improve the appearance and to solve any defects and irregularities. All these external aggressions compact the soil and makes the surface compress which causes both water and air to remain in superficial layers on the top and not reach any deeper to the roots of the grass.
With the punching of holes in the greens we can aerate the surface, it essentially helps the green to breathe and to absorb the nutrients that it needs to stay healthy. When the balance of nutrients is correct, it promotes the development of microorganisms that help the grass grow. It is important to perform this spiking before the arrival of the high summer temperatures. The greens have to have a balance soil and air, doing this work helps to restore that and improve the conditions for the grass to grow. The grass that fills our course is alive, like any other plant, and needs to have water, soil, air and nutrients that allow it to continue growing, otherwise it could die.
This procedure is performed in several phases. First you pass a machine that extracts long thin plugs of soil and grass sod.
When extracting these plugs you can check the sediments that have been left during the treatments, irrigation, etc.
Looking at these photos we hope you’ll appreciate the meticulous work our green keepers carry out to maintain the course in optimal conditions and offer our users the very best quality.