The weather this week has provided an excellent opportunity to complete our tee and fairway granular fertlization.  Fairways are being fertlized today and tomorrow, with tees having been completed on Monday.

Given the large area of treatable turf we have here at Stow Acres, this process is completed using a PTO spreader mounted on our New Holland TC33D turf tractor.  As always, we do things a bit differently here at Stow.  Rather than use a pulley and rope, or lever setup to open the hopper and start spreading the fertlizer, we’re using a 12V linear actuator and controller to operate the gate.  This allows us to control the rate exactly and make minute adjustments as the fertilizer is applied.  It also ensures that the gate is opened at the exact same speed each time, providing a controlled gradiant of applied product at the beginning and end of each pass.  The controller allows for three different positions: Position 1 is for the gate closed, and Positions 2 and 3 are reserved for two different application rates.

Keep an eye on the tees and fairways in the next week, they’ll be greening up in no time!

-Justin Parker, Equipment Manager