dry spots on greens with green healthy aeration holes Cancel The title field is required!

1. Johnson Aaron M

   
   7/6/2015 4:07 PM

   I know this is a no brainer, but I thought I would post.
   when we verticut, we usually run the blades around .140 below the surface of the rollers. dependent on weather, could we go deeper to remove some more of the thatch, or is coring the only way to alleviate my problem? Say if we went aoround .160 to .200, would this get some of the thatch removed? A double verticut with a light topdressing would be ideal for me based upon labor, but is coring the only way to go to alleviate thatch? I know what the books say, but just wondering if other sup's out there have had luck with solid tining and verticutting? Our OM levels are around 1.6%, so if we did core like we did in the past, I would definitely do a 80 20 sand peat mix to bump our OM levels.

   
   
   
   
2. Michael Wagner

   

   0 posts
   
   7/12/2015 8:07 AM

   If you really want to remove thatch the best way is to core aerate as everyone knows but another thing you can do is use a graden verticutter. They can be set pretty deep but be careful not to go too deep as the remaining material can fold over causing a very bumpy surface. I wouldn't go deeper than a half inch with it and topdress until the grooves are full.

   
   
   
   
3. Michael Wagner

   

   0 posts
   
   7/12/2015 8:07 AM

   Also use a wetting agent like fleet to alleviate the dry spots.

   
   
   
   
4. Kyle Fick

   

   4 posts
   
   7/13/2015 11:07 AM

   The Gradens are good, but make sure you have a lot of time to work on the surface. Just as was stated, anything more than a half inch is very tough to work with. One thing I"ve done in the past was topdress first, then graden, dragging a mixture of the 2 mediums back into the channel. Really though, I think the only good way to use a graden is to have the sand box attachment that puts in into the cut channel. I've tried a bunch of material removal items, and no matter what, we end up closing the cut trying to get the old off and drag in the new. worked really well for some spot seeding though. Cut shallow enough to be able to back pack blow the material away and then dropped seed and sand to drag in. A heck of a lot easier than trying to clean bentgrass seed out of our overseeder.