Tag Archive for: compaction

How to Stop Surface Compaction Killing Your Turf

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How to Stop Surface Compaction Killing Your Turf: In drought conditions, compacted turf is your worst enemy. It seals the surface, blocking irrigation water from reaching roots, and accelerating turf stress. Then when it does rain, you get a surface full of puddles that eventually evaporate off with little benefit to the turf roots. 

Regular surface aeration is therefore crucial, and GreenTek has a wide range of specialised equipment to help with this.  Here we will look at the various options in detail.

How to Stop Surface Compaction Killing Your Turf

How to Stop Surface Compaction Killing Your Turf

Sarel Rolling

This is a long-proven technique, using spiked rollers to prick through the turf surface and enable entry of air, water, wetting agents, and nutrients into the root-zone.  GreenTek offers three Sarel-Roller options:

Triplex mounted

The Thatch-Away Supa-System units take a wide range of interchangeable turf maintenance attachments including Sarel-Roller Cassettes.  The three separate units give a working width of 1.5m, which combined with the greensmower’s speed and manoeuvrability makes this the most popular option for the majority of golf clubs.

Tractor mounted

Some golf clubs, and also other sports clubs, prefer to operate their Sarel-Roller on the back of a compact tractor or utility vehicle like the Pro Gator or Workman.  The popular 1.6m Tractor Mounted Sarel-Roller is ideal for greens and tees.

However, for larger areas such as golf fairways, and sports complexes with multiple pitches, the Multi-Sarel is ideal.  Its three hydraulically folding units give a massive 5.4m working width, enabling 18 fairways or multiple pitches to be sarel-rolled in just a matter of hours.

Alternatives for extreme conditions

If your golf greens have got so hard that not even sarel-rollers will penetrate, there are two further options from GreenTek’s Dynamics range to help solve your problem.

Dyna-Spiker

The Dyna-Spiker units fit to your greens triplex and have extra long slitting spikes which are powerfully driven into the turf.  The mower’s hydraulic or electric motors drive an eccentric camshaft, causing the spikes to vibrate and penetrate deep into the surface, breaking open compaction and allowing entry for vital water, wetting agents, and nutrients.

Dyna-Corer

The other member of the Dynamics range, the Dyna-Corer units, also fit to your greens triplex, and these have a punch action with interchangeable tines.  Most commonly used with hollow core tines for year-round micro-coring and thatch removal, in dry weather these can be swapped for solid needle tines to open the surface up without disturbance.

Survival

The key to surviving drought conditions is to take action quickly!  Don’t wait till your grass is dying before you act.  Opening up the surface is an immediate priority.  Then when heavy rain does inevitably come, your surfaces will drain freely without puddles, and the turf roots will get maximum benefit form the precious water.

Maintaining an open surface through the summer protects your turf health, and saves the need for extensive remedial and reseeding work later in the season.

GreenTek provides a full range of aeration equipment which can be viewed here.

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Spalding GC go into winter clear of compaction

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Spalding GC go into winter clear of compaction: A Deep Tine Aerator (DTA) from GKB Machines was delivered and put straight to work by the team at Spalding Golf Club, as part of their pre-winter maintenance programme.

Delivering impressive aeration down to 12”, the DTA 160 has already completed passes on both the greens and the fairways since its arrival in October 2022 and will be pivotal in keeping the course clear of compaction in the wetter months.

Spalding GC go into winter clear of compaction

Spalding GC go into winter clear of compaction

Head Greenkeeper Kevin Goude took charge just five months ago, and together with the greens team of five, was delighted to learn he’d inherited an order for a new GKB DTA 160 placed by his predecessor and due for delivery from local distributor Russells Groundcare. “We’ve got a pedestrian aerator in the shed which is ideal for summer work at depths of 4” but we needed something to replace an ageing machine that could penetrate much deeper to really help drainage and root growth” explains Kevin.

The GKB DTA is deep by name and deep by nature, offering easily adjustable depth and heave angle of up to 25o for effective compaction relief. At 1.6m wide, the DTA 160 at Spalding GC is well suited for tasks around the golf course – from fairways, tees and aprons to intensive aeration on the clubs 18 greens.

“We took delivery of the DTA 160 at the end of October and went out immediately on the greens, before switching to ¾” tines working at a depth of 10” on the fairways due to the dry summer. One thing we really like about the GKB aerator is the tine blocks which make switching between sets really quick and easy compared to having to replace each tine individually. There’s a whole range of tine options available with this machine as well so we can really make the most of it with operations throughout the maintenance calendar.”

“Alongside the tine system, another thing we’ve been particularly impressed with is the build quality of the DTA – well engineered and robust to handle some of the more challenging ground conditions we have on the fairways.” Kevin concludes, “Beside the machine itself, the support and back-up service we’ve had from Russell’s Groundcare and Tom Shinkins at GKB has also been excellent. We can now look to aerate deeper as we go into winter and be best placed to cope with whatever the weather can throw at us!”

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Quick compaction relief at Phoenix GC

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Quick compaction relief at Phoenix GC: Tackling compaction on previous untouched ground, a Redexim Verti-Quake® 2516 has dramatically improved the downward movement of moisture at Rotherham’s Phoenix Golf Club.

The Verti-Quake®, delivered in September 2021, complements the aeration work conducted with their existing Redexim Verti-Drain®, with Multi-Sport Complex Manager Mark Smith citing outstanding results on some of the sites historically waterlogged areas.

Quick compaction relief at Phoenix GC

Quick compaction relief at Phoenix GC

Constructed on clay-based land, the 65 hectares that make up the complex includes cricket facilities, a bowling green and nine football pitches, alongside the 18-hole parkland golf course. Working with Mark on the maintenance is a team of five, meaning that operations such as aeration have been limited by time and resources. “The Verti-Drain® has traditionally been utilised on the greens but not on larger, open areas because of staffing levels” explains Mark.

“We’d seen a contractor utilising a linear aerator on our football pitch and decided something like that could bring benefit to areas, such as the fairways, on the golf course.” After exploring the options, Mark opted for the Redexim Verti-Quake® 2516 – offering a 1.6m working width and effective compaction relief down to 250mm. “As soon as it was delivered by our local dealer Cheshire Turf, we were out on some of the historically challenging areas and the results spoke for themselves. We went into the winter, and emerged the other side, so much drier than we ever have before.”

“Considering a lot of the areas we used it on had never been aerated previously, the Verti-Quake® broke straight through the compaction and helped to move the water down and towards the water courses – providing a much more cost-effective alternative to installing drainage.” After making such a strong first impression, Mark is now looking forward to the further improvements the Verti-Quake® can deliver. “If it’s open land, and it’s likely to get wet, we’re going to get the Verti-Quake® on it!” he says.

That mantra extends to work on other areas of the complex, including the football pitch, reducing the reliance on external contractors. “We’ll get the Verti-Quake® out during the end of season renovations, giving us important compaction relief and getting the ground repaired and recovered in time for the busy playing season.”

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