The Difference Between Aerating And Venting

This morning our Teaching Professional pulled up to the first tee for an early round of golf, took a glance over to the 18th hole and saw a scene that strikes fear in the hearts of all golfers. The green had been topdressed, 1/2 inch cores were being pulled and cleanup of the surface was soon to begin. I was watching the procedure when he asked me if all the other greens were being worked on. Not being one to miss an opportunity I replied that we had punched all of them. The look on his face was priceless. Sorry Mike. Just kidding!! What it did tell me was that even with twitter, the Turf Care Blog and communication with the Golf Shop (several days in advance) not everyone got the message we were hollow coring the new turf on 18 green today. Or that we will be venting the rest of the greens on Wednesday and Thursday. Food for thought. The main point of this blog post is to review the difference between the two procedures and briefly explain the purpose of each.

We are all familiar with hollow core aeration. It is the removal of a predetermined percentage of the root zone and modifying it with sand that is brushed and or blown into the open holes. It is disruptive to play but is also an essential turf management tool here at The Royal Mayfair. We typically aerate in early October to extend "summer like" greens throughout September. In our area of the country if greens aeration occurs in September the quality of the putting surface will be changed for the remainder of the season. The later aeration date means the aeration holes do not heal over before winter but I believe that it helps drain away minor amounts of excess moisture in the late fall and helps in water and air movement in early spring. Just a personal preference and something that not every superintendent would agree with but it works here. The exception to the rule this year is the 18th green, the warmup and 1/3rd of the putting green. They are being "punched" several times to aid in recovery. Recovery that has gone very well to date.

Venting is a procedure that punches many small pencil like holes in a green using a soild tine (no core is pulled). The main purpose is to open up the surface to allow better air and water exchange, not to modify the root zone. However we do lightly topdress each green before venting. The mechanical action of the aerator loosens up the turf canopy (which is very tight at present) and quite a bit of the sand is vibrated into the grass. Also when we brush the remaining sand some of it does make it into the small holes in addition to smoothing the surface of the greens. Following the brushing we will roll and syringe (light watering) each green. The putting surface is now pretty much back to normal. Aside from some evidence of our regular topdressing program the holes are barely noticeable. We vent the greens once a month from June until September.   

Both procedures are important to maintaining our quality greens and their correct soil physical properties.  

There are many types of solid tines used for venting turfgrass. We have installed a "cross tine" on this aerator for our purposes.