The weather has been just about perfect in Chattanooga over the past few weeks and our greens are off and running for the summer. We started our verticutting practices this morning and it was very successful. Verticutting or vertical mowing is a process used to remove old or "fat" leaf blades from the turfgrass surface to create room for new leafs to form, to reduce grain, and to improve the firmness of greens. This is a great process to improve the health and well being of the greens surface. There are about as many ways to verticut greens as there are superintendents in the world but verticutting in circles has worked best for me in the past. Personally, I think we spend enough time attacking the turfgrass in straight lines so I feel I can be more productive by mowing in a circular pattern and thus hitting the leaf blades at different and strange angles.
The process begins by verticutting two to three cleanup laps around the inside perimeter of the green and then moving to the inside of the green to mow in circles throughout the green. The debris left on the greens is then blown off and the greens are mowed at about 0.020 higher than our normal mowing heights. The greens are then fertilized with an application of granular fertilizer 19-0-17 from Harrell's and then watered in immediately for 5-8 minutes. We are able to remove a great deal of material from the greens and the next day we will send out our cutting units at their normal cutting heights with the brushes on and will really clean up and slick up the greens.
No comments:
Post a Comment