Billingbear Park Experiments with One-Metre Deep Aeration

Widely varying soil structure on a busy, Berkshire pay and play golf course has prompted owners Martin and Jacquie Blainey to try one-metre deep aeration.

"We re basically a parkland course with three or four lakes, which most of the land drains into," explains Martin, "but there are three or four low lying holes on heavy clay with no natural run-off. We've also had problems on one of our fairways and a hard pan area in gravel. Since we've been here, (Martin and Jacquie bought Billingbear Park Golf Club eleven years ago) we're always doing drainage of some sort and we'd tried most methods of aeration. We hadn't used the one-metre deep, compressed air de-compaction service offered by Terrain Aeration, so we thought we'd get them in and conduct a bit of an experiment."

Terrain's Steve Oates arrived with the company's Airforce Scamper machine at the end of January to treat all the problem areas plus a section of semi rough. "We saw an almost immediate result," Martin continues. "Although we suffered torrential rain immediately afterwards, once the weather dried up the course made a quick recovery. It was interesting to see during the last two days of work that the treated half of the fairway was noticeably drier than the untreated half."

Martin and Jacquie will continue to monitor the results during the playing season.

For further information on the aeration and drainage services offered by Terrain Aeration, contact the company on Tel: 01449 673783 or visit their website at: www.terrainaeration.co.uk