Turf healing time - Graden vs. Core aeration

[John Connolly]

I've seen midwestern bent and poa greens, 5 weeks after Graden de-thatching with concomitant 1/2" core aeration, still with the corduroy Graden defects but completely healed aeration holes.


Why does it take bent greens longer to repair Graden lines than aeration holes? Is it simply the amount of disruption/displacement?

[John Connolly]

I should add that where I've seen this, it has been on push up greens that are 100 years old. Graden lines were contemporaneously backfilled with topdressing so no gaps were left.

[Ben Lovett]

I took over a course in February where the greens were Graden Sand Injected in November and still showing the signs now. Needless to say I will be reevaluating the process in the future! Admittedly I'm not known to apply much fertilizer but the temptation has been there.
On USGA bentgrass greens with a fine contamination of poa in continental Europe

[Anthony_Nysse]

Hard to remove more thatch and get more sand into the canopy than what the Graden accomplishes.

[Steve Okula]

We do a similar process, Graden and hollow tine aeration at the same time on Bentgrass/Poa greens in a temperate climate. In good growing weather it's 3-4 weeks to fully recover, without too much fertilizer. We did one this year the first week of April and it stayed relatively cold and dry and it took six weeks to get back to normal.

[Marty Bonnar]

Has Graden come to mean verti-cutting in the same way that Hoovering is now the synonym for vacuum-cleaning?
 
F.


PS should we have a new verb then - Gradening?

[Steve Okula]

The Graden is an aggressive verticutting unit, with wider blades that dig much deeper than a conventional verticut like the ones mounted on triplex greens mowers. The Graden can kick up an enormous amount of organic material from the greens (or tees) and with sand topdressing it's great for getting the surface firm.

[John Connolly]

Steve,


The Graden's a great tool for firmer turf - no doubt. But I still would like to understand why it takes longer to heal than the 1/2" core aeration does. I was directed by a friend to a USGA article from 2007 that compared, amongst other things, healing time for Graden/verticutting and core aeration. They noted the same thing - Graden takes a lot longer. But their conclusion was that this delayed healing was related to lack of sand back-filling. However, current Gradens allow for concurrent topdressing so that can't be the only reason. Any guesses as to why?

[Jon Wiggett]

John,


it take longer to heal because it removes a lot more material than coring does.


Jon

[Dan Herrmann]

Our head greenkeeper used the Graden heavily last September, and it healed fairly quickly due to the good growing conditions.


A former super used it in March, and it took forever to heal.   March in SE Pennsylvania is still pretty cold.


Therefore, in my non-professional experience, having weather that's warm enough to promote grass growth is key to Graden recovery.

[Dan Herrmann]

Our head greenkeeper used the Graden heavily last September, and it healed fairly quickly due to the good growing conditions.


A former super used it in March, and it took forever to heal.   March in SE Pennsylvania is still pretty cold.


Therefore, in my non-professional opinion, having weather that's warm enough to promote grass growth is key to Graden recovery.

[Rory Connaughton]

John,


 Core aeration displaces a fraction of the material that the graden does. The core itself is also round so turf recovery takes place with a 360 degree grow in whereas the graden process results in turf growing laterally only.


  We gradened at the very end of last season then came into this season with a simultaneous core aeration/graden followed by a dryject a few weeks later.  Cool spring meant longer recovery time than I would have liked but the results after grow in have been really good.


 

[Carl Johnson]

Started a new thread.  https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,73237.0.html

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