Keith Lamb said: Contamination/Mutation. Watch your N input. Do a backtrack mow after verticutting. It's gonna scalp. Nature of the beast.
Keith, that is the only way we verticut. I started that back in 2000 after we just replanted them. I know I do not verticut the often enough. since times got tight it has been extremely harder to find the manpower to get them done every other week. It is not so much the full day it takes to do them but the mess they make afterwards which takes so much time every morning after cutting to get them cleaned.
This has been the worse I had seen them since we planted them. Looking back to this years program compared to other years the one thing that sticks out the most is the issue with our last two aerifications. the first one we got a total of 10" of rain from the night we completed the aerification until the weekend. My approaches were too wet to get a topdressor on. By the following week they were already closing over so we went ahead and dumped the sand on them any way. I think half of the sand got caught up in the canopy at that time and then on the following aeification I caved to pressure to put plenty of sand on them to fill the holes in (because they did not completely fill in from the first time) and we had them completely filled in three days but left a lot of sand in the canopy again. I think this is where the issue started with the plant stalks growing longer to get more light. I do not think the nitrogen rates caused this since I only average 1/2lb month. but I did just apply lime, gypsum and fungicide for a pretty heavy case of Fairy Ring. They seem to be as healthy as I have seen them in 5-7 years.
I tell you this because real world experiences can be the best education as we all know.
With fall so near I am looking at trying to verticut them deep one more time before it gets cold. It appears that I have a function every other week so I need to get it done at the beginning of the two weeks between functions in order to let them heal over. I will be using this weeks progress in healing to judge if this theory is sound.
I am looking at possibly using a graden next spring to clear them out and get a fresh start.
Thanks for all comments and please if you have a thought please bring it up. I can only go by what I see and what I have to work with but someone may have a suggestion that would work better.