We usually associate the word 'culture' with stuff like traditional dances, arts, beliefs or anything that is part of the social psyche of a group, community or civilization. A glimpse at the Concise Oxford Dictionary reveals that 'culture' also means 'tillage of the soil'.  Your Superintendent may also refer to some activities that he does on the golf course as 'cultural practices'.  

If the introduction to this article starts to sound like a turn-off and before you start turning to another page, let me assure you that I will stick to the purpose of writing these series of articles, which is to make turf maintenance easier to understand for the ordinary golfer.  So if you – like me – are not sure what 'psyche' means or how to actually pronounce it, lets just stick to talking about grass. 

In general, turfgrass cultural practices usually refer to activities that are mechanical in nature, not the chemical side of it, even though turfgrass maintenance guru Dr. James Beard lists fertilization as part of  cultural practices. Now then, this piece should have been one of my earlier articles, since it includes works that we have elaborated on in previous articles. In my opinion, these activities can be listed into a few categories. With all due respect to Dr. Beard, I will leave fertilization out of the list:

Mowing

By definition this is the act of cutting long grass to become short grass. What does long and short mean? Well we call it 'height of cut', or h.o.c, which simply means how high the grass is cut above the ground. Some people will tell you there are 'bench' cutting height and then there are 'real' cutting height. This is due to individual differences between machines or condition of the location where the grass is cut. The mechanic or operator may have set the cutting height at the workshop (on a work bench) to say, 25mm but down on the ground that height may be too low or too high by  a few millimeters. Then it will have to be reset manually on the field through trial and error. I will cover more on this topic in a future article.

Irrigation.

We Superintendents could call it 'watering' but then it sounds so ahem... normal. So we call it 'irrigation'. In fact, when it happens we term it as an 'irrigation event'. Heck, we don't even call water falling from the sky as 'rain' anymore; we say 'precipitation'.  Mind you, putting molecules consisting of two atoms of Hydrogen mixed with one atom of Oxygen on turfgrass is serious business to us Superintendents. We even call our people 'Irrigation Technician'; even if he hails from a tiny kampung on a small unnamed island off the island of Lombok which is off the island of Java in the country of Indonesia. It is so important a topic that I will write an article  in a future page in this website about which you probably will need an encyclopedia and two dictionaries to read. You had better not miss it. 

Topdressing

A layer of sand on greens or fairways is a common enough occurrence for a regular golfer. Yet topdressing is not limited to just sand. It could be topdressing with soil, or a soil-mix, it could even be inorganic materials like zeolite, or it could be pure organic matter like dried chicken dung. The definition is: the application of a layer of sand, soil, soil-mix or other such stuff on the surface of the turfgrass after which it is mechanically moved into the grass with the aid o rakes, mats, brush or irrigation water.

Vertical cutting

When we cut grass, it is usually done on a horizontal plane; for example when we cut the greens at the height of 4.5mm every day, it is done on a horizontal scale of measurement, that is, the level of cut is 4.5mm from the level of the ground where the weight of the cutting unit is resting on.

Vertical cutting involves the use of a cutting implement that has blades that rotates on a cutting plane that moves vertically; up and down. I further divide vertical cutting into three different uses. These uses are based on depth of cut (not height of cut).  How deep your Superintendent set his verti-cutters depend on various factors - contact your Superintendent for more information - but I usually categorize them based on what the intention is:

●         Grooming.
It is done to get a better cut which will result in smoother greens, less grain and faster green speed. This can be done almost daily on greens.  The depth is set at slightly below cutting height level. The phrase 'turf-groomer' is copyrighted to a particular brand of mowers, but your Superintendent may be using other brands that will use a slightly different method to do the same thing.

●         Dethatching
As the name implies, this procedure is done to rid the grass of thatch.  It is deeper than grooming and we'll have to clean up behind it because of the rubbish that was thatch that the procedure left behind.

●         Scarifying.
I don't want to scare you (pun intended) but the depth of cut of this 'scarifying' procedure may reach below the soil surface. After some time, thatch that did not decompose turns into 'mat' and it is partly this layer that the scarifying procedure is targeting. Your Superintendent may call this procedure as 'mataway' though this actually refers to the brand of a machine; a brand-name that is so popular that it has gone on to become a generic name; just like 'Xerox',  'Maggi' or 'Colgate'.

Aeration

We have dealt with this topic in a past issue. But I will go through it again in general terms for those of us who were unlucky not to have read my previous articles (Ha! You should have subscribed).  In the day-to-day use of turfgrass areas, it could not be helped that the weight on top of the surface will force the sand particles to press against each other and force air out of the soil moisture. Now then, the roots and other 'good guy' micro-organisms in the soil require oxygen to survive. We also need to make pathways for water on the surface to run into the soil drainage fast. So among the processes that we do are:

●         Coring
We pull out cores from the soil to the surface. We use tines that are hollow so this process is also called 'hollow-tining'.  There are various sizes that can be used.  I am familiar with sizes from ¼ to ⁵/₈ of an inch. If we use tines that are solid, then the process is referred to as 'solid-tining'.

●         Slicing
The blades used for this work is not motorized or powered. It looks like a ninja's shuriken with a hole in the middle and it is rolled around so that the tips penetrate the soil surface and create openings. The top of the opening look like slits and usually are too small to be of concern to most golfers on most days. Of course to a golfer on a lousy putting day, anything and everything is at fault.

●         Spiking
The operation appears to be almost like slicing except the blades look like needles or maybe even cylindrical spoons.  It functions the same way. It causes tiny round openings on the ground that air and water can go through.

●         Venting
There is a new product in the market called a 'Ventine' that goes much deeper than slicing or spiking but shows the same opening at the surface of the ground.  It holds much promise for Superintendents who want to aerate often with the least disruption to the surface.

●         Deep-tine aeration
This is a mixture of deep spiking and human ingenuity.  A piece of needle-like metal is inserted straight in, the tip moved backwards a bit and pulled out quickly.  The result is a small hole at the the surface but a cave below.  Your Superintendent may call this process  'Verti-drain' in respect to the brand of machine that made this technique popular. Yep, this is a case of a brand-name that has gone on to become a generic name; like 'Xerox', 'Maggi' or 'Colgate'. Whoa, I just had a moment of deja vu there, where have I heard that sentence before?

This list of procedures that I gave is not conclusive or exclusive. It may include other items that your Superintendent is doing.  I believe whatever it is it will fall into one of the five categories above.  I also believe anything that involves chemicals like fertilizing or chemical applications should not fall into this list but some Superintendents – including yours – may have differing opinions and I respect that, I think we all should. What is important is that all these mechanical activities that your Superintendent have to do is important to the health of the grass.  In human terms I usually put them in the same category as 'exercise'. Now then, if you believe that exercise is important for your health, regardless of whether you do it or not or you consider golf as an exercise, don't you think the grass at your course needs to have their exercise too to remain healthy?