Venting Greens

The staff spent the last 2 days venting greens. This is a process where we open the greens surfaces with a tine 5/16” thick. We use our tractor powered Verti-drain machine to perform this operation. There are a number of benefits that are created by this process.

• Open surface to encourage oxygen to enter root zone and built up carbon dioxide to escape
• Allows water to penetrate green surface and excessive water to evacuate through evaporation
• Even though the channels are narrow, roots can grow in the channel due to a positive growing environment
• During cooler times, green profile opened up can warm and during hot weather it can assist in cooling by allowing trapped heat to escape

We usually do this procedure every 3-4 weeks during the late spring and summer, 3-5 times per season is the norm based on weather and turf conditions. The holes usually disappear on the surface in a couple of days and create very little disruption in ball roll out. The holes in the profile can last a couple of weeks or more, 

48 tines with spacing about 1” apart. Tines are about 7” long.

Sometimes called pencil tines The hole is about the size of a pencil. We roll the greens after the process to smooth out the hole. We will roll them the next day to reduce the chances of scalping and then mow the third day.