Spring Verticutting

Monday was a busy day at Blue Hills for the Maintenance Crew. The crew began the morning with a little verticutting to the greens. This is the first of many verticuttings this season. Verticutting is a cultural process that is necessary to incorporate every season to help with thatch accumulation and grain control. Verticutting removes excessive roots and stems that have been accumulating just below the leaf vegetative tissue and just above the soil surface. It also helps with removal of organic matter. This practice will allow the leaf blade to grow more upright which in turn will help with ball roll and overall green playability.  

Verticutting

This last week temperatures were rising and everyone believed spring was finally here. The Blue Hills Turf Crew believed this to be true and so we got out on the course and got down to business. We began our first verticutting of the season on all of our greens. Verticutting is a cultural process that is necessary to incorporate every season to help with thatch accumulation and grain control. Verticutting removes excessive roots and stems that have been accumulating just below the leaf vegetative tissue and just above the soil surface. It also helps with removal of organic matter. This practice will allow the leaf blade to grow more upright which in turn will help with ball roll and overall green playability. 

Let it Shine, Let it Shine

          This week we removed a tree behind 17 green. This mature pin oak looked healthy and seemed to be out of the way in terms of affecting our golf course. Since the tree was so tall, it casted a large shadow on the south end of the green. During the winter months this is problematic especially during a snow event. The sun can't penetrate through the branches of the tree because of the sun angle being lower in the sky as compared to the summer months when the sun is higher. This will cause the snow to sit long periods of time on the surface, the same is true when it comes to frost. When looking at the pictures you will also notice that the tree, although looked healthy, it was beginning to rot from the inside out. This of course wasn't our intention, because it didn't show any signs of rot from the outside, but it goes to show what most of our mature trees might be experiencing on our golf course.

Letting Them Breathe

Monday, we had the opportunity to take advantage of these unseasonably warm temperatures by needle tining our greens. Needle tining is another form of aerating greens, but without the major disruption aerating usually brings. Normally, we would pull a core and fill that empty space with sand. Needle tining instead, doesn't pull a core and only makes a hole small enough to help with the air exchange of the roots in the soil. It also helps with water movement into the soil profile and will relieve soil compaction, and allowing our roots to grow.