The Balancing Act

What you are seeing here are earthworm castings in the 5th fairway. You probably have noticed these tiny patches of soil on fairways, 2,4,5 & 6.
If you remember your biology classes in school, you remember that earthworms are good for the soil and plant growth.They benefit the soil by providing simple aeration as they feed on organic matter. Organic matter is typically found close to the surface in the thatch or mat layer. When the worm processes the soil, it leaves behind these castings of soil. This is where they can be detrimental to a golf course.
These castings can impede ball roll and playability. They can also create problems to mowers when the soil cakes on and disrupts their operation.
Managing these holes is certainly a balancing act. There is so much rock beneath these fairways that the root structure is limited in depth. These fairways require light and frequent irrigation as well as carefully timed fertilizer applications. We also use growth regulator chemistry to promote lateral growth and increase density.

When conditions become dry on the course these castings can become more noticeable. Balancing irrigation is certainly a challenge. Often times these areas require hand watering to efficiently irrigate where it is absolutely necessary. Pictured here are two staff members watering drier areas on the course. When hand watering, the staff will probe the soil to determine if the soil needs moisture or not. The new irrigation system has certainly helped decrease hand watering, but if you are not hand watering, you are over watering.

How do you prevent earthworm castings and why don't you see them on the greens? Studies have shown that earthworms are very sensitive to sandy soils. The soil profile in greens mostly consist of sand and some organic matter. The sand is abrasive and is uncomfortable as they move through the profile. Greens typically have less organic matter to feed on compared to a fairway.

Details

Catching up on some details today with edging irrigation heads on fairways, approaches and greens. Keeping the irrigation heads clean and neat allows for efficient irrigation applications. Most heads on the course have distance markers to the middle of the green. Keeping the heads clean allows players to read distances clearly.

Filling fairway divots throughout the course. It is important to fill a divot with sand to encourage new growth and keep the surface flat. When filling a divot, do not mound up the sand. Use your foot to smooth out the surface. Doing this allows for better ball roll and prevent damage to mowers.

Assistant's View: Fusion

The electro-fusion machine is our newest irrigation tool.  This machine will allow us to repair our HDPE pipe.  The way this machine works is there are two electrodes that stick out of the repair coupling that are connected to wires that run around the inside of the coupling.  This machine heats the electrodes and wires to a temperature that will melt the HDPE and weld the coupler and pipe together.  Each coupler has a bar code that the machine reads to determine how hot and how long it needs to heat  the coupler to get a perfect weld.   It’s very important that the pipe and couple are clean and free of debris to get a good weld.  The first step in fusion is to scrape the HDPE pipe to get a fresh layer of material visible.  Then I clean it with isopropyl alcohol to remove any oil that may have been left behind from handling it.   Once the pipe is clean I can then slide the couple on and make sure everything is lined up properly.  I then use the optical pen to read the bar code that tells the machine what size and density the pipe is. The last step is to hook up the electrodes and hit the start button.  For two inch pipe it takes about 45 seconds and it’s done.  The first project that I have used this machine on is repairing irrigation lines around the new bridge construction on 11 and 17.  We will be using it next on 7 tee to install irrigation on the newly built tee.  With all the construction going on here this will be a very useful tool to be able to repair pipe or add new irrigation when needed.  

The next step in irrigation technologies

Rain Bird has finally released a product to match up against their main competitor. Toro has had a lot of success with their soil sensors over the past few years and I know a few superintendents that really like them. Buried anywhere you irrigate on the golf course you can monitor soil moisture, temperature and salinity. Vail Golf Club is not the easiest site for wireless technology (see AT&T). But the research and comparisons will begin! The nice option with the new Rain Bird ISS is that it can "speak" with the Rain Bird Central Control System. There is a neat little video with the link that describes the "nuts and bolts" of the product.

Rain Bird ISS Integrated Sensor System

Auditing Irrigation

We are a year removed from the irrigation installation and it is time to see how things are working. Monday, Rainbird conducted a audit on the system. We chose the 16th green and fairways for the testing. These are the same areas that were tested in 2008 by Colorado State University Extension from Mesa County. It will be great to see the comparison from old to new.

The old system was 55% efficient on the green and a mere 32% efficient on the fairway.

Wade Vecchio, our local Rainbird representative and Brian Keighan, president of Irrigation Technologies were on hand to perform the audit. The cups are placed every 10 feet on the green and are recorded by GPS. Next, each sprinkler head that waters the green is turned on one at a time to simulate a nightly watering. Each head was turned on for 6 minutes. During their cycles, the main flow from the head is tested for pressure (bottom picture). The desired pressure is 80 psi, which passed with flying colors.

The goal for collecting water in cups is to find the uniformity of the application, not the amount of water applied. Our goal is to be above 80% efficient. The fairways should grade higher because they are wide open spaces and the heads are placed in a perfect triangular pattern. However the wind did pick up slightly during the test for fairways, which will skew the numbers slightly.

Greens are different, because the odd shape of the greens and tighter spaces with trees and various terrain. A poor grade from the audit on greens will require adjusting/replacement of nozzles. Needless to say, I expect much higher grades than the 2008 scores. We are in the right direction, this test will tell us how much tuning we still need to accomplish. Over the next year, we will audit every green in-house to ensure uniformity.

Adjustments

We had a half inch of rain last night which we are glad to see. Rainfall is the closest to 100% efficiency for irrigation systems. Even with the new system we can get close to that number. We are planning an audit on the system this year to see where that number falls.

Currently we are fine tuning the nozzles on heads that surround the green. Many of the sprinklers in the roughs that surround the putting surfaces are overthrowing onto the green. We are finding that the spacing and uniformity on the wide open areas have perfect spacing from last year's install. However, around the greens and in tighter spaces we need to do some tweaking to correct the distribution uniformity.

So if you are noticing the green surrounds are a little damp over the next few mornings, it is due to our tuning and making sure these sprinkler heads are spot on for the future.

Cleaning the Intake

On Thursday we put the final flush on the irrigation intake from Gore Creek. You have probably noticed how our ponds have been lower than normal. With the flooding and the local beaver activity our 200 foot intake pipe was clogged from years of debris.

The Eagle River Water and Sanitation District has been on-site numerous times over the past few weeks to remove the debris various way. Our last attempt on Thursday was a success and now we have recuperated our normal flow conditions and the ponds are now full for the fish and irrigation.

Keeping water movement is important for pond health and aeration. The ponds are designed to flow through the golf course and eventually return to the Gore.

Fine Tuning

Are you noticing some dry spots on the golf course, maybe more than normal? Wondering if that new system is working properly? Well, it is working as it should, we are just getting through the system to do some fine tuning.
We have almost doubled our number of irrigation heads throughout the property and it takes longer to go through every individual head to make sure they are working properly. Irrigation auditing is a continuous job especially through the "getting to know" period. There are close to 3,000 heads on the course and by the season's end I expect to know almost everything about 1,500 of them.
First of all, the system was designed and installed to irrigate properly, or at the very least, how turf grass should be irrigated. For years this golf course lacked uniform irrigated, so we are expereincing areas of turf that have been overwatered for years, which are now getting what the plant should receive. Now that stress periods have set in, the turf is struggling in spots.
Wetting agents are being used to help alleviate some of the stresses and provide consistency. Spiking helps irrigation water penetrate harder surfaces and into the rootzone. Handwatering occurs in the highest stress areas.
Now that all of the heads on the course have been reviewed for communication and arcs of throw, the next step is to adjust nozzles. This can be a 2-3 year process. All of the heads that came from the factory are set to throw a 60' radius. Due to some slopes and tight areas around the greens some of these throws need to be adjusted so we target exactly what is necessary. Factors other than the radius include, pressure, gallons per minute and evaporation rates. We plan to acomplish all greens and surrounds this season. With the snowcover in the winter, we'll have to focus on the tees, roughs and fairways next season. I would guess that 15-20% of the sprinkler heads need to be adjusted in some fashion from the original install.

Drip

Tony Giroux has been planning this project out since he returned from Turf School. Tony is making some slight adjustments to the irrigation system.

We planted 78 new trees around the course at the end of last season. Tony has begun installing drip irrigation lines to each trunk.
Pictured here is the valve used to tie into a 2 inch lateral line. The valve reduces the pressure and into a 1/2 inch flexible pipe. The pipe is run by every tree and tacked down to stay in place. At each tree an emitter is installed into the pipe allow water to seep out. The nozzles used release 1 or 2 gallons per minute (gpm), depending on tree size. Extra communication wire was initially installed near these valves so drip lines could run alone from the central computer.

This has been a nice learning experience for Tony. We plan on doing more tree planting in the future as we continue developing our master plan.

Snow Water Equivalent

Posted under the heading you will notice recent snow water equivalents for a few local peaks. In all three locations the water equivalent is lower than 2002, when the state experienced the worst drought in recent years. I will keep an eye on this periodically to see how it will effect the golf course's water supply. Good thing we have a new irrigation system to manage water more efficiently.

Swing Joints

In response to the GolfGenie comment made yesterday, I will explain the purpose of the swing joint and provide some answers to the question.

It regarded sunken sprinkler heads on golf courses and how can that be prevented.

Well first let me explain how heads become lower than the original plane. One reason is that they were not installed correctly. As you will notice, when Landscapes installs each irrigation head, they spend a significant amount of time packing the soil to prevent any future settling. They use hand held packers or "jumping-jacks" (pictured here on a mainline install) to provide the most stable soil to house the sprinkler. Over time heads can settle if the soil cannot adequately keep the sprinkler in place.

The other reason, which you may find on courses with older irrigation systems, is due to the chronic sand topdressing applications made to the turf. Little by little each topdressing application raises the level of the playing surface, however the heads stays put. This certainly was common with many of our old heads, especially around the greens. The GolfGenie, probably noticed her sunken heads mostly around the greens since the putting surfaces receive the most amount of topdressing.

The only way to fix this is where the swing joint comes into play. Pictured above is Jesus with a swing joint and you can notice its flexibility. The swing joint is a combination of pivoting elbows of pvc that allows the sprinkler to withstand pressure from above. When sub-surface irrigation was first attempted on golf courses, they began to have problems with heavy equipment and golf carts driving over a sprinkler and damaging them. The swing joint eases the impact of traffic to a pressurized pipe and head from above. So, the swing joint was invented to provide the flexibility in the soil to keep the sprinkler from failing.

So the solution is to dig around and below the irrigation head and expose the swing joint. Depending on how low the head is, you can do one of two things. First, you can adjust the pivot points on the joint to raise it to the appropriate level. The downside of this, is that you may sacrifice some of the flexibility if the joint is maxed out. The second solution, would require a slightly bigger hole and a little more room in the budget. You can purchase a second swing joint to add to the one already in the ground and you will have no problem acquiring the appropriate level of the head. Neatly back fill and pack the soil and re-install the turf so that the entire area is level.

This can be a time consuming project and sometimes will be done over the course of a few seasons.

An Amazing Sight

The fertilizer yesterday required irrigation following the application. To my surprise and golfer's delight we were able to get #5 and #6 watered quickly. With the old system, we only had the capability to turn on up to 4 sprinklers per fairway due to the low flow.

This was the scene yesterday with the new system on the 6th hole. In about 10 minutes we had the fertilizer completely washed into the turf canopy. Our jaws just dropped when we saw how many of these heads were able to come on at once. we lost count after about 20 heads came on. Call us turf geeks or hydraulic geeks, but it's pretty cool.

Coming out of the storm...

A dusting of snow on the course today, however the rest of the week is looking quite promising. This week, the staff will continue to topdress fairways in preparation for the winter season. We also plan to blow out the irrigation system this week. It is critical to drain the system thoroughly for the wintertime. Soil temperatures and evaporation rates are low enough now to rely on Mother Nature for moisture. In the event of a dry fall, tank watering will be neccessary to prevent dessication and turf decline late in the season. As long as the weather stays nice, the golf course will be open for play.