Collar Renovation

Over the last few weeks, the staff have been chemically treating our collars in an effort to weaken the bermuda grass that has invaded them. We've made 2 applications of a product called Pylex which is safe to use on collar height bermuda. Today, the guys are renovating the collars and planting some bent grass seed around each collar. The overall process will not be completed until next spring. It will take the bent grass plants time to mature and spread. We wll have to also continue our bermuda grass sprays next spring and will have to work our way off the greens to reduce the amount of competition that enters the collars in the future.

The process we used today is illustrated below and in video as well:

• Used our Toro Walk behind aerator to place small and shallow holes one pass around each collar.

  

  10 small tines per holder. We are using 3 sets on our machine which is about the width of the collar.

  
  

  

  As you can see, my pinkie still dwarfs the tine. The tine goes into the surface no more than about 1/2" which provides enough room for the seed to drop in and be protected from a mower and adverse weather conditions such as high temperature.
  
  The remaining process will be illustrated in a couple videos below.

• We then use our walk behind slit seeder to slice some lines into the collar creating a slight channel for the plants to germinate and mature.

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  We then take a drop spreader with some sand and bent grass seed and drop it onto the collar surface. This is to insure we get seeds into the open spaces and the job saver tine holes.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The collars are then hand brushed with a stiff broom and they are mowed without baskets to insure the bent grass remains on the green or collar edge.