Verticutting & Sequestering carbon

A Perfect St. Augustine Verticut

Bermuda grass central Florida

This machine verticut the top two , but not the lawn on the left without modification. 

This style Verticutter is used on golf courses (photo below), this blade spacing will destroy a St. Augustine lawn.

Why is Verticuting important to all types of grasses?  Because all lawns create thatch. Read below what the experts say about thatch!
 (  photo below ). Then my thought's on the environmental impact of Verticutting.

Thatch:

•  Thatch is defined as an intermingled layer of dead and living shoots, stems, and roots that develops between the zone of green vegetation and the soil surface. Thatch consists of a loosely interwoven collection of plant matter that leaves the turf feeling spongy or puffy (Figure 1). When excessive (1 inch or more), thatch causes serious problems in  lawns. Thatch is not caused by grass clippings.
• Grasses like Bermuda and Zoysia, will benfit from Verticuting twice a year. See what golf course superintendents do and why? 

Promote growth (Turfgrass maintenance)
FEATURES - FEATURE, TURFGRASS

Done at the right time, verticutting improves turfgrass health.

JOHN TORISELLO | August 21, 2007

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Golf course superintendents have no magic bullet at their disposal for their ongoing battle to maintain the best turfgrass conditions possible. But one of the best weapons superintendents have in their arsenal is verticutting, a process that has gained popularity and now is common throughout the country for all types of turfgrass.

Verticutting is the thinning of turfgrass by blades or wire tines that cut perpendicularly to the soil in a shallow swath or a deep cut. Both methods can promote lateral and vertical grass growth. Yet, a deeper cut removes more material to allow moisture and oxygen to reach the root zone more easily.

“In this area, verticutting is fairly common,” says Tom Johnson, golf course superintendent of New Richmond (Wis.) Golf Club. “I’ve been doing it regularly for about 15 years, and I’ve seen good results in the overall health and quality of our greens. People on the green committee comment if we miss verticutting for one reason or the other.”

Verticutting is an important turf management tool to reduce thatch, says Tim Haines, golf course superintendent at Binks Forest Golf Club in Wellington, Fla., a KemperSports-managed facility. Thatch ties up chemicals and reduces efficacy, making it difficult to move water into the soil profile. Verticutting helps alleviate those problems, Haines says.

Verticutting can be used to control graining, remove thatch, prepare for seeding, cultivate the soil or disperse core materials following aerification, says Anthony Williams, CGCS, at Stone Mountain (Ga.) Golf Club.

Also, verticutting is useful on courses that have newer turfgrass varieties that might tend to form thatch quicker than traditional varieties.

“Today’s ultradwarf Bermudas and new varieties of bents seem to produce more thatch,” Haines says. “Thus, the frequency of verticutting should be increased. With fairways that have bentgrass and Bermudagrass, thatch is also an issue. I will verticut a couple of times a season on both types of grasses.”

David Phipps, golf course superintendent at Stone Creek Golf Club in Oregon City, Ore., says many of the new bentgrasses, like the As and Gs and Ts, are extremely aggressive and require a lot of cultivation. Heavy verticutting can be used in conjunction with light topdressing to help incorporate sand into the surface.

“I verticut my greens to enhance a more vertical growth habit,” he says. “Regular verticutting stimulates branching and tightens the turf.”A388

• More: http://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/mitgc/article/1992117.pdf
• Always remember blade spacing is critical to your overall goal.  If you use the same spacing for Bermuda on St.Augustine, you will destroy that lawn.
•  Is it just for fall reseeding? Or spring clean-up, maybe seeding.  

 Will Verticutting have an impact on CO2 levels?

See the complete article:   http://goo.gl/Vut2wB

How soil health, economical land use, and how modern agricultural practices affect our environment.

For example, did you know that our modern agricultural system is responsible for putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the actual burning of fossil fuels? Understanding this reveals an obvious answer to pressing global problems.

There are only three places for carbon to go: land, air and water. Our agricultural practices have removed massive amounts of valuable carbon from land, transferring it into air and water. By paying greater attention to carbon management, we have the opportunity to make a dramatic difference in this area, which is having major negative consequences to our agriculture, and the pollution of our water and air.

As explained by Judy, early this past summer, concentrations of atmospheric CO2 crossed the 400 parts per million-threshold—the highest it's been in thousands of years. According to an organization called 350.org, scientists believe our CO2 levels need to be around 350 parts per million in order to maintain favorable living conditions on earth.

Carbon management is a critical aspect of environmental health and the growing of food.

That said, CO2 levels are not constantly or continuously rising in a straight line. The level rises and falls, and this is a clue to what's going on.

"Depending on the season, depending on how much photosynthesis is happening, it dips down, and then goes up again," Judy explains. "When we've got a lot of plants, as we get towards the warmer part of the year, more photosynthesis is happening, and the CO2 levels drop slightly.

That's so important to know, because photosynthesis is key to what we're talking about.

When I talk about bringing carbon back into the soil, I'm talking about supporting and stimulating the process of photosynthesis – in other words, growing more plants. Those plants then take in the CO2. They make carbon compounds. Those carbon compounds are drawn down, and they go into the soil."

Sequestering carbon in the Earth's soils is a good thing. There's actually more carbon in our world soils than in all plants, including trees, and the atmosphere together. However, due to modern agricultural methods, we've lost between 50 and 80 percent of the carbon that used to be in the soil... This means there's plenty of "room" to put it back in.

"It's useful to understand that the notion of bringing carbon back into the soil, one thing that it does is withdraw carbon down from the atmosphere. That's hugely important," Judy says.

"Carbon is the main component of soil organic matter. That's the good stuff that you want in soil anyway for fertility. It also absorbs water. When you have carbon-rich soil, you also have soil that is resilient to floods and drought. When you start looking at soil carbon, the news keeps getting better and better."

Does Verticutting stimulate the process of photosynthesis?  

In Florida we have Bahia grass, now mostly used along road ways, fields etc. Before St. Augustine, it was the dominant grass in Florida.  Important; Bahia, is deep rooted and requires much less water that other southern grasses. It should be fertilized only spring and fall. In central and south Florida, it may grow 4-6 inches every week in the summer months. If you control the Mole Cricket, it can be a beautiful lawn.
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Many years ago we power-raked Bahia lawns, before st. Augustine became popular.. It was a big production, a big show. You had to have a big truck to haul and the stuff you power-raked. A power -rake is a machine that may look like a Verticutter, but it's just a glorified hand rake. Then we Verticutt a Bahia lawn, 30 days later it was like some miracle happened, we had improved  density by 50%, with less than half the work.

What happened?

With out knowing we opened the lawns up for better breathing, cut the rhizomes, helped eliminate thatch, while aerating.  Also cleaning away excess debris.  All this allows the lawn to  allow moisture, pesticides, fertilizer and oxygen to reach the root zone more easily.  And stimulated the process of photosynthesis.

See the list of grasses below, they all can benefit from Verticutting.

So will Verticutting have an impact on CO2 levels, your pocket book, while doing your part to save the environment?

Yes! Some final thoughts.

• Fall clean-up and re-seeding, allow enough time before frost. Blade spacing 2-4"
• Spring clean-up & seeding. 
• Bermuda & Zoysia, better when the weather is warmer. Blade spacing 2-3"
• St. Augustine grasses; personally I am not aware of any Verticutter that was designed to Verticutt these grasses. My machines are modified.  See my original blog: What is Verticutting? 

Personally I know only one person with St. Augustine Verticutting experience. That's because we share the same machines, for over 20 years. I believe all the grasses listed below can be Verticutt with much success. 

But you will destroy a St. Augustine lawn without the proper machine and lots of experience.

If you have pictures and experience, lets share.

The Lawn Grasses

There are four ways to plant a new lawn: seed, sod, sprigs, plugs. Seed is the traditional way, and has the advantage of relatively low cost. If you're planting a large area seed is probably the way to go. Over the last three decades of so, turfgrass sod has become widely available. Somewhere, somehow, most grasses are available as sod. Sod is a good choice when the planting area is smaller, or where time or resources to nurse a seedbed until germination. Think of sprigs and plugs as pieces of sod: they're essentially the same as sod, but divided into smaller units. Plugs are actually small squares of sod, and sprigs are pieces of mature lawn grass that can form roots and grow. There are a few lawn grasses, such as hybrid Bermuda, St. Augustine, and some zoysia varieties, that are available only as sod, plugs, or sprigs.
For a basic introduction to lawns, see "Lawns 101."
Here are brief descriptions of the different kinds of lawn grasses. The kinds that you can plant as seed include bahia, bent, Bermuda, blue grama, buffalo, centipede, fescue (all kinds), bluegrass, ryegrass (both annual and perennial), and some zoysias.
Bahia grass (Paspalum notatum) is a tough, coarse grass that is popular in the Southeast as a low maintenance and generally low quality lawn. It is drought and shade tolerant, but requires frequent mowing. Improved varieties such as 'Pensacola' are more cold-tolerant and somewhat more attractive. Seashore paspalum (P. vaginatum) has a fine-textured leaf blade, but is most notable for its tolerance of salty soil and water.
Bent grass, creeping (Agrostis stolonifera) is a fine-textured perennial grass that forms a soft, tightly-knit turf. A favorite for golf course putting greens in northern regions. Top varieties include 'Penneagle', 'Penncross', and 'Seaside'.
Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) is the most important lawn grass of the Sun Belt. It has all the essential characteristics a lawn needs for those regions—heat and drought tolerance primarily. The very aggressiveness of Bermuda is also it's key disadvantage. When creeping Bermuda invades flower beds and ground cover, it's called "devil grass" by frustrated gardeners. Bermuda grass is tough and fast growing enough to be one of the most popular grasses for sports fields. It's good for pet owners for the same reasons: damage from whatever cause will repair quickly. Bermuda tolerates little shade and will thin quickly in shade; and it becomes dormant and brown through cool seasons. There are many varieties of Bermuda grass. Common Bermuda or "Arizona common" is widely available. It's a relatively coarse-bladed form. Medium textured varieties available as seed include 'Cheyenne', 'Guymon', 'Jackpot', 'NuMex Sahara', 'Sonesta', 'Sundevil', 'U3', and 'Yuma'. The softest and finest blade Bermuda—the kinds used for southern and tropical golf greens—are hybrids that are available as sod only. These include 'Tifgreen', 'Tiflawn', 'Tifway'.
Blue grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis) is a North American native grass that is well suited to the northern plains. Like Bermuda grass, it grows best in summer and is drought tolerant. But unlike Bermuda grass, it is very cold hardy and able to survive a North Dakota winter. Blue grama spreads slightly, but ultimately produces a clumpy, uneven lawn. Mowing it 3 or 4 times a year will make it more lawn like.
Buffalo grass (Buchloe dactyloides) is, like blue grama, a North American native grass, a once dominate grass of the vast American short-grass prairie. For obvious reasons, it makes good sense as a lawn grass in much of the low-rainfall West. The look is similar to Bermuda: slightly blue-green in the summer, then straw brown through winter. Several improved varieties are available; some sod only. The best seed varieties are 'Cody' and 'Tatanka'. A close runner-up is 'Topgun'. Top varieties to grow from sod are '609', 'Prairie', and 'Stampede'.
Centipede grass's (Eremochloa ophiuroides) prime virtue is its ability to survive and even thrive in acidic, poor soils. Because temperatures below 5°F kill centipede grass, only gardeners in the southeastern United States (and parts of Hawaii) grow it. A warm season grass, it turns brown in hot and dry weather, and is quick to enter dormancy in fall.
Fescue, fine- or needle-leaved. There are three types: chewings fescue (Festuca rubra commutata), creeping red fescue (F. rubra), and hard fescue (F. longifolia). Chewings fescue is desirable in low maintenance situations. It is particularly tolerant of sandy, acidic, and infertile soils. Hard fescue is very cold hardy and low maintenance. A naturally short grass, it requires less frequent mowing. Creeping red fescue is used most widely. All three are often mixed with Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass, adding greater shade and drought tolerance. Named varieties include 'Aurora', 'Bighorn', 'Claudia', 'Flyer', 'Ensylva', 'Longfellow,' 'Marker', 'Medallion', 'Reliant', 'Salem', 'Scaldis', 'Shademaster', 'Spartan', and 'Victory'.
Fescue, tall or broad-leaved (Festuca arundinacea). Traditional varieties, such as 'Kentucky 31' and 'Alta', are tough and coarse-bladed pasture grass. But now many improved varieties are available that nearly match Kentucky bluegrass in look and feel. Tall fescues are more heat and drought tolerant compared to fine fescues. Varieties to look for include 'Amigo', 'Avanti', 'Aztec', 'Bonsai', 'Cimarron', 'Cochise', 'Crewcut', 'Crossfire', 'Duster', 'Guardian', 'Monarch', 'Ninja', 'Pixie', Rebel Jr.', 'Shenandoah,' 'Tomahawk', 'Tribute', 'Twilight', 'Virtue', and 'Wrangler'. Some—such as 'Rebel III', 'Earth Save', 'Shenandoah', 'Titan II', and 'Tarheel'—are endowed with natural pest repellents, calledendophytes.
Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis). By far the most popular type of lawn grass for most of the northern half of the country. It is also planted further south, usually in areas with significant coastal influence, such as coastal southern California. It grows there, but long term survival is rare. Notably, it does not thrive in the Pacific Northwest, west of the Cascade Mountains. Cold-hardy, soft-textured, attractive dark green color. Look for named varieties—such as 'A-34', 'America', 'Asset', 'Blacksburg', 'Blue Star', 'Chateau', 'Classic', 'Eclipse', 'Glade', Julia', 'Loft's 1757', 'Midnight', and 'Princeton 104'—on seed label.
Ryegrass, annual (Lolium multiflorum). Annual ryegrass has one redeeming virtue: its low cost. For that reason it is often used to overseed dormant warm-seasons grasses in southern regions. Because it prefers cool temperatures, most will die out of a warm-season lawn once hot summer days arrive.
Ryegrass, perennial (Lolium perenne). The best varieties of perennial ryegrass have a desirable fine, soft texture, and dark green color of Kentucky bluegrass. While occasionally used alone, they are most often combined with Kentucky bluegrass and fine fescues. Look for varieties such as 'Commander', 'Dimension', 'Manhattan II', 'Palmer', 'Pennant', 'Pick 715', 'Riviera', 'Saturn', 'SR-4000', and 'SR-4100'. 'Manhattan II' is notable for being endowed with natural pest repellents, called endophytes.
Seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum) is a native of South African sand dunes and is well adapted to similar environments in the United States It is noted for its tolerance of salty soil and irrigation water. It can survive on ocean water, and is well suited to partially recycled gray water. Its look and feel is similar to Bermuda grass, and it similarly spreads with both above- and below-ground runners. It is planted by sprigs, plugs, or sod.
St. Augustine grass (Stenotaphrum secundatum) is one of the most important grasses of the South and West. It's fast-growing, deep-rooted, and coarse-textured with broad, blunt-tipped blades. It is a spreading grass via above-ground runners. Seed of this grass is not available; plant it from sprigs, plugs, or sod only. Top varieties are 'DelMar', 'Floralawn', and 'Jade'.

Zoysia grass (Zoysia species) is often touted as a miracle grass, and while many of the claims of its virtues are true, there are also drawbacks. Three species available: Japanese lawn grass (Z. japonica), Manila grass (Z. matrella), and Korean grass (Z. tenuifolia). Korean grass is more a ground cover than lawn grass. It's wiry but fine-textured and creates interesting mounds as it grows. Only Japanese lawngrass is available as seed. While tough and resilient once established, it is notorious for its poor germination, short green season, and long dormant season. The newest varieties 'Zen 300' and 'Zenith', improve upon all three traits. Hulled and treated seed germinate in 2 weeks and can make a lawn in 2 months. The color of Japanese lawngrass is similar to bluegrass, but blades are much stiffer. Vegetative selections of Japanese lawngrass include 'Meyer' and 'El Toro'. Manila grass has stiff and flat leaves with a fine texture and deep green color. It makes a high quality lawn in tropical areas, but is planted from sprigs, plugs, or sod only. Other zoysias to plant in the same way include 'Cashmere', 'De Anza', 'Emerald', and 'Victoria'.

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