Course Aeration

Aerating is common practice for the majority of golf courses. Most of us do it once or twice every year. It is an essential cultural practice needed for the health of our turf. From Sunday, April 17th till Thursday, April 21st, I was involved in Capilano G&CC's course aeration. My previous experience with aeration has only been with tees, greens, and compacted areas. At Capilano, they do a whole course aeration, including greens, tees, rough, fairways, and surrounds, twice a year.

Aerating the rough on hole 1, Hathstauwk, at Capilano.

There are several reasons they do this course wide. One reason is to relieve compaction which is a major issue on the course. Regular play and vehicles cause compaction in the soil. Compaction can come from other sources as well, such as rain, which is very common in Vancouver. Another reason is to aid in drainage. As mentioned before, rain is very common on the course. The sand put down into the soil profile through topdressing aids in drainage. The majority of the turf on the course is Annual Bluegrass (Poa annua). Poa is known to be very sensitive to stress. By relieving compaction, improving drainage, and improving plant growing conditions, we are aiding the plant by reducing those possible stresses.

Aerating the fairway after topdressing has been applied.

The process of aeration was quite involved. For greens, approaches, and tees, plugs where pulled and collected via snow shovels. Cores from the approaches were picked up separately from greens plugs due to differences in turf variety. Greens were then blown off with backpack blowers to get rid of any remaining debris. A substance to flush sodium from the soil was then applied (this is what I was involved with). Topdressing was then applied, dragged in with a drag behind mat, and finally brushed. On fairways and rough, topdressing was applied before aeration. After they were punched, the fairways and rough would be dragged in. After greens aeration was finished, a crew was sent to cleanup the fairways and rough, dispersing piles of sand and debris left behind. 

Removal of plugs from the playing surface.

As mentioned before, my involvement for the first few days was the application of granular product to the greens after aeration. Before we applied we had to calibrate our equipment. I was glad to get to practice this skill that we had learned in school. After greens were completed, we applied gypsum to the surrounds on the course. It was a lot of work, but I was glad to be apart of it. Being my first full week, I was still learning the course and the day-to-day operations. This gave me a chance to learn the course and ask questions of my supervisors.

Aeration is always lots of work. It means long hours, early mornings, and late nights. However, I was glad to be apart of it. The operation was of a scale I had never seen before. I was able to learn much about planning for aeration and about the course.

Thanks to Michael Newton, Assistant Superintendent, for providing the photos.