Aeration: A breath of fresh air for greens

This video does a great job explaining why greens aeration is important.  It's definitely worth a look.  I especially recommend it if you are a skeptic of aeration.

Greens aeration is right around the corner.  In fact, we aerated the practice greens today.  We like to aerate the practice greens before starting on the golf course in order to fine tune the process and make sure the equipment is operating properly.  Greens aeration will begin on the golf course this Sunday (October 17th) at noon.  The golf course will be closed while the process is finished on Monday and Tuesday (October 18th & 19th).

During greens aeration, 5/8" hollow core tines will be used.  Last year we experimented using 1/4" hollow core tines exclusively.  The healing time was much less with the smaller tines, but unfortunately, so were the benefits.  Last year the greens were aerated six times with 1/4" hollow core tines.  Yet, by January the greens were not infiltrating nearly as well as previous winters when more traditional 5/8" hollow core tines were used.  We used squeegees to get water off greens more last winter than the previous three winters combined.  The greens were also softer than previous winters.  Eventually, we ended up aerating with solid tines in order to get the greens to infiltrate until they could be core aerated in the spring.

I believe the downfall of the 1/4" tine experiment lies in the inability to fill the 1/4" holes with sand.  The holes are so small that it is nearly impossible to drag sand into the holes.  Consequently, there is no sand channel created.  When traditional 5/8" hollow core tines are used, the holes created are easily (given the right conditions) filled with sand.  This creates a sand channel, which greatly increases infiltration long after the aeration holes have grown over or healed.  Additionally, aerating monthly in the growing season with 1/4" hollow core tines had a negative impact on the integrity of the putting surface.  Essentially, we alleviated compaction too much.  There is a certain amount of compaction required to provide a quality putting surface.

This is not to say there is no value in 1/4" aeration.  I am sure there are instances where an aeration program similar to the one we implemented worked well in a different setting.  Perhaps using 1/4" hollow core aeration in conjunction with traditional 5/8" hollow core aeration would provide better results.