We are always looking to improve any agronomic practice we perform on the golf course. This year, in an effort to reduce the recovery time from fairway aerification, we made a fairly dramatic change to this process.
We substituted our traditional large, heavy duty aerifier tine for a slightly smaller one which produces a cleaner hole, and will hopefully fill in more quickly. In order to impact the same percentage of surface area, a smaller tine means we need to make more holes. Therefore the aerifiers were setup with 50% more tines from side to side (36 versus 24).
The downside to this, is that the tines we used on fairways, are better suited for the sand-based greens and tees. We went through a lot of tines beating the fairway soil--somewhere around 700. With three team members running the aerifiers, we added a fourth employee, the "pit crew" guy. This individual was tasked with monitoring the machines, and was ready to change any tine as it broke.
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| A barrel of broken tines. |
From what we've seen thus far, this aerification tweak looks like it was very effective. Just three days post-punching, and #15 has some pretty happy turf.
In reviewing a change such as this, we always have to ask if the juice is worth the squeeze. Well, we definitely spent more money on parts and labor, however if the end result is less downtime for the fairways, we will likely stick with this method going forward.
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