Minnesota Golfer - Fall 2011 - 12

(ask the expert
)
Clearing the Air on Aerifi cation
Mankato Golf Club superintendent Fred Taylor admits that
aerifying greens may be annoying-but also extremely important
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t some point this fall, the greens
at your favorite course are going
to be aerifi ed. Just when they
are in their best condition of the season,
the greens will be fi lled with little round
pock marks that may make putts bounce,
roll off line or come up short. It's aggravating
to most golfers, but things would be
much worse without it. Aerifying has to be
done, and Fred Taylor, superintendent at
Mankato Golf Club since 1992, explains
just how important the practice is.
Q Why do you aerify greens?
A It's not to irritate the
golfers, which is a common
misperception. One reason
is to help with compaction
of the soil. Aerifying helps
get a little more air into the root
zone. It helps percolation and infi ltration
of water.
Aeration
tine
long. Those tines go down into
the soil and create very deep,
wide holes that are backfi lled
with sand. You don't so much
harvest the organic material
as much as create a
channel of sand that allows
surface water to follow
that sand down eight to 10
inches deep.
Q Compact soil is no good?
A One of the things we've learned in
the last few years (especially in USGA
greens, which are built with sand) is
that you get a lot of organic matter
built up in that soil. We core aerify and
remove the cores, and along with the
sand and soil, we are pulling out a lot of
that organic matter, which is basically
dying and decaying roots and plant material
from the grass itself. We remove
those cores and backfi ll them with new,
non-organic material-sand-thereby reducing
the overall percentage of organic
matter. That helps with water percolation
and with air and gas exchange.
Q Is there more than one method
of aerifi cation?
A In addition to core aerifi cation, there
is solid tine, which we call venting. We
use real thin, narrow tines (smaller in
diameter than a pencil) to poke a bunch
of holes-which you could barely detect.
It helps vent some of the gases [carbon
dioxide, hydrogen sulfi de and
methane] and allows the surface
to be broken up just enough to
get some water percolations
through it. This strategy is
helpful in mid-summer.
There is also large, deep
solid tine aerifi cation, which
uses ¾-inch diameter
tines, 10 or 12 inches
Fred Taylor
10
MINNESOTAGOLFER Fall 2011
www.mngolf.org
Q Why do you aerify in the fall?
A Most courses aerify in the spring
and fall. We use the smaller ¼-inch
hollow tine in the spring and core aerify
in the fall. If you aerify when the turf is
healthy, it is going to grow back and knit
together a lot quicker.
Q How long are the greens affected?
A It depends upon which style of
aerifi cation, the fertility you use and very
much on the weather-if it rains in the
middle of this process, you have a mess. If
all those factors stay in our favor, and let's
say we are using the bigger 5
/8
usually, a week to 10 days. The small tine
holes heal quickly, and in four days you
really don't know we were even there.
Q What happens if you don't aerify?
A In the end, you compromise plant
health. The roots aren't going to be as
healthy and the plants aren't going to
operate as effi ciently-you set yourself
up for disease, and compromised plants
can't take as much as stress. The plant
is not going to be as healthy. When that
happens, all kinds of things might
affect it.
-inch tines-
Solid tine used for venting greens
PHOTO COURTESY OF MANKATO CC
http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Fall 2011

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