Graden Greens

With great weather today we are back out on the course working to get things cleaned up and ready for the season.  We started one of our most important cultural practices today on greens and hope to be finished up in the next couple weeks weather depending.

 Cultural practices much like aerification have an important goal of removing organic matter from the soil profile.  Organic matter much like we have discussed before is the dead or dying tissue from the grass plant, this material can cause not only greens to become spongy and soft, but also cause issues in nutrients reaching the roots of the plants.  Often times the majority of this material is built up in the upper regions of the soil, in turn being the most crucial to disturb or dilute.  The graden is a great machine because not only does it remove the material but also it directly injects sand into the small slit as you can see above.  Although it is a great process it is very time consuming, so that being said we do hope to finish the course within the next couple weeks!