Aeration Holes - The Big or The Small?

[Adam_F_Collins]

I've noticed that some courses are aerating with smaller holes - so small that they don't do much in the way of ruining the putting for late-season golf.

Do these do an inferior job to the bigger holes? If not, should we expect to see more courses using them?

[Tyler Kearns]

Adam,

Next year, at my home club we are experimenting by aerating 3-4 times a year using 1/4" (small tine) holes, instead of 2 1/2" (large tine) aerations which render the greens unputtable for at least a week, more if the weather does not co-operate. Because our season is so short (mid-April to mid-October), the greens committee and superintendent are trying to alleviate the inconvenience 1/2" aeration creates. As evident from a trial last year, the 1/4" holes fill in much quicker, and play is near normal a few days later.

TK

[Mark_Fine]

Guys,
It is not just the size of the hole you see on the surface that matters.  More important is what in happening to the soil under the surface.  There are techniques available now that leave little evidence on the surface of what actually took place underneath.  Wish I had the time to elaborate but I'd check them out (or maybe someone else here will have time to talk about this).
Mark

[Troy Alderson]

Adam,

What is happening is superintendents are using the smaller 1/4 inch hollow tines at a 1 inch by 1 inch spacing and removing an equivalent amount of thatch and soil as the 1/2 inch to 5/8 inch hollow tines, at 2 by 2 spacing, everyone is used to.  Yes, the smaller holes heal faster and the golfers are happier, which is the goal of any superintendent.  We will see this occuring alot more in the future.  Golf courses should always be looking at improving the aeration machinery constantly as new and better technology comes out all the time.  The most important agronomy practice a superintendent can do is aerate in some form or another.

Troy

[Don_Mahaffey]

Check out this link if you want to compare tine sizing and hole spacing.


http://www.msu.edu/user/karcherd/cultivate/

[Mike McGuire]

Don -

Thanks for the link to the calculator.

 Most super's around here say they aerate for thatch. If you are removing 4.91% of the green surface (1/2" hole 2x2) is that a significant amount thatch removed?

[wsmorrison]

I hope I understood this correctly.  Tom and I were sitting in on a meeting with the superintendent and GM of a highly regarded Western PA golf club and Matt Shaffer of Merion.  Matt talked about the results of compaction of subsoil by tines that are constantly drilled to the same depth.  This causes a very dense layer of soil that is obviously unhealthy.  Matt mentioned that he got a Toro 648 and that this can vary the depth at which the tines  penetrate by a control on the machine.  This dramatically reduces the creation of a dense subsoil layer.  Does this make sense to those in the know?  It makes logical sense.

By the way, the new superintendent at RGGC found the pH of one of the greens to be 5.2.  He had never before seen a level below 6.0.  All the greens are vastly different from one another in many ways.  I hope he can devise a scheme that can bring all the greens into some sort of equivalency so the crew can practice the same effort on all greens.  It must have been a real chore to try and manage 18 greens in 18 different ways.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Everything is a trade off. If you think there is no agronomic difference in hole size, read the following link:

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/tero/v02/n17.pdf

and another good link for the serious turfhead:

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/2000s/2003/030301.pdf

And one more link that suggests 20% of the green's surface should be aerified each year. Ouch!

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/2000s/2001/010708.pdf

Wayne,
Some call it aeration pan, it's as you explained the compacted area that can develop after repeated cultivation at the same depth. I think most supers know about it and I think most do something about it by either varying the depth, using different machines, or mixing in a deep tine to their program.