As I continue to describe our activities last Monday, this post is a look at verticutting the greens.
Thatch control is extremely important to the health and playability of the greens. A little bit of thatch is desirable for traffic tolerance, but too much can be a nightmare. Puffy greens, soft surfaces, disease pressure, and hydrophobic spots are all related to thatch.
Recently, we completed the main component of thatch management with an aerfication of the greens. Just one month later, we are back at it with a shallow verticut to smooth the surface and promote upright growth or reduce the grain.
It’s pretty amazing how much material comes out of green during a veritcut. The vertical blades which resemble blades on a table saw, cut a slit in the green and toss the organic material into the buckets on our mower. A few months ago we had to dump the buckets every other pass on the greens. This time we only had to empty twice per green.
The depth for this time was set at 1/8 inch below the surface of the green. This just barely meets the soil surface and does most of the the work in the thatch layer. Deeper verticuts could be used on the chipping green and small putting green which are very spongy.
The result of this practice is an improvement in surface smoothness and an increase in green speed. We often follow a verticut with a light topdressing, but skipped that process this time since we just aerified and can wait a bit before adding some sand.
I still have one more post to share that will cover the final portion of our work this past Monday; one day of work and a week's worth of information for the blog.
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