Acclimating

Back to reality, and back from San Diego. Just to finish where I left off, Friday was a 6 hour class on best management practices for water conservation. Which is a funny title because the instructors preached efficiency should come before conservation. What they mean by this makes a lot of sense.

During drought periods, we hear the word conservation so frequently. This triggers the "number effect" which entitles a supplier to state a number in which they would like the user to reduce by, which then leads to a percentage of total water used or a volume amount of water. Thus areas such as the roughs and other non-essential or in some cases essential areas of the course begin to suffer.

In fact, first I should seek more efficient watering practices. If that is accomplished it means that I can define how much water grass plants and other landscaping needs throughout the golf course. For example, if a fairway is getting too much water, and then is corrected to the proper amount, the roughs can be left "as is" and I will be conserving water as a result. In most cases, if you seek to streamline your practices, it is inevitable that you will conserve in the end. Moving forward with a brand new irrigation system, I am much closer to an efficient system, through time we will see how much will be saved.

Vail Golf Club made a large stride to conserve water by replacing the entire irrigation system on the golf course. Now with a leak-proof piping system, new pumps, and top of the line irrigation heads and control system we have improved efficiency to its greatest amount possible.

Now I just need to acclimate to using the new system to increase its efficiency, then we can talk conservation.

And you thought I was poolside all week...