2012 FALL aerification

Another aerification is now behind us and our focus has quickly shifted from survival (summer/stress month strategy) back to playability.  The holes have already started to heal in and it has only been 1 week.  This is very promising and with the 10 day forecast looking to be in our favor somewhat, they should heal in as scheduled.  Here are the step by step pictures of what we actually do on those two days. (I used some pics from this past Spring because some things were easier to see in those)





A simple explanation of the aerification cycle





The board is made out and ready to go when everyone arrives--the entire day is planned




Deep Drill company comes in and starts around daybreak.





Close-up of the Drill machine.





Then we aerify right after the drill crew finishes each green.







Our sweeper cleaning up the cores left by the Drillers and the Aerifiers




Then several guys strap on backpack blowers and blow the little bit of material that was left behind







Then we use water hoses to open up the holes so that we can get fertilizer and sand into them more effectively





Everything has been cleaned up and now it's time to add fertilizers that will fall into the holes





Filling the topdresser with sand out on the course rather than making many many trips back to sand pile



After covering the green with sand we drag this brush around to evenly disperse the sand

After dragging the sand around to smooth it out a few more times and using hand brooms to move the sand around and fill in EVERY hole completely; we will begin rolling the greens to get them smoothed back out.