The Graden is a piece of equipment I refer to a lot. We use this machine on our greens once a year. As you can see by the photo, a series of table-saw like blades, cut through the turf and thatch about 1.5" deep. Then, a series of tubes located behind the blades, deposit sand in the groove that is created. The beauty of this machine is that it impacts 11% of the surface in one process. To give you an idea, using 1/2" aerification tines on a 2 " spacing, only impacts 5%. The USGA once stated, superintendents need to impact about 20% of the surface just to keep up with organic matter production in the rootzone. Excess organics (thatch), leads to soft, spongy greens that will eventually fail and will need rebuilt. This is a time consuming process because not only does one man run the machine, but others come behind cleaning up and several other staff members keep the machine filled with sand. We plan to start this process on our greens the 1st or 2nd week of March. It will take about 1 week to do all 19 greens and croquet courts. That is if we have good weather.
