Here is a sneak peak at an upcoming May article that will be in the Highlands CC Piper Newsletter:
Grass Clippings
Brian
J. Stiehler, CGCS, MG
We spent the past 6 months finishing the irrigation system by installing all new piping and sprinkler heads on the front nine holes at the Club. Now that it’s all finished, what did we gain from the project and how will the technology be used?
First, irrigation systems are used for several different reasons, not just supplementing rainfall. Before I go farther, I want to make that distinction. Irrigation systems are designed to supplement natural rainfall, not replace it. That’s a common misunderstanding most people have about irrigation systems. In addition to supplementing rainfall, irrigation systems are commonly used to move fertilizers or plant protectants into the soil, clear the turf of frost on occasions as well as cooling off the turfgrass canopy on warm days.
Highlands CC is now equipped with close to 1,000 RainBird sprinkler heads, a far cry from the 300 or so heads we had before on the system that was installed in 1987. Asking 300 sprinkler heads to irrigate 85 acres of maintained turf is a tall order. This means the sprinkler heads we had, supplied an excessive amount of water inefficiently, and it also meant a lot of areas received little to no coverage. Using smaller heads with a much tighter spacing, allows us to pinpoint where the water is to be delivered, with precision. At the same time, we are conserving water by using far less of this important resource. This means the golf course will play firmer after irrigation cycles. While water use isn’t a hot topic in Western North Carolina, it is the number one issue facing golf in the next 10 years. If you look at the situation in the Western United States, it’s clear how vital water is and just how political it can become.
A member once asked me if the irrigation system has the technology to run on a “timer.” Well, it is far more technical than that. We base irrigation decisions on several forms of data, specifically weather data like humidity, cloud cover and rainfall. At HCC, we will also be equipped with our own weather station. We are specifically interested in evapotranspiration rates. This is the quantity of water that is lost from the root system by either evaporation or a plant transpiring. When you get out of the shower or a swimming pool, you often get a cold feeling. This is the result of water evaporating off your skin. All plants work the same way. While they don’t sweat like a human, they absorb water through their root system and then release it through their stomates, or small openings on the leaf surface. Transpiration is the way a plant cools itself off on a hot, sunny day. The rate at which water is lost this way, is directly correlated to air humidity, sun exposure as well as the available moisture in the soil. Our new weather station will calculate that number for us, giving us the exact amount of water, we need to replace in the turf system for the greens or tees or other surface to make it another day without wilting. Wilting occurs when there is no more plant available water in the rootzone, so the turf (or any plant) shuts down.
Our new irrigation system does come with some neat technology. For one, I can control the irrigation system from anywhere in the world, by an app on my cell phone or my iPad. At the recent HCC Board Retreat, I impressed President Davis by turning on 4 sprinkler heads on #1 green (at HCC), while I was standing in the middle of the 9th fairway at CC of Birmingham. I also have total access and control of the pumpstation from my telephone. All current weather data can be accessed from my phone as well. The weather station will be located near the tennis courts, behind the Hudson House.
In addition to water management, we also keep a close eye on water quality through constant monitoring and testing. In Highlands, our water is too clean. While this is a good thing, it is not when it comes to irrigating turf. Plant nutrients bind to soil particles by tiny electrical charges. Water also behaves similarly by binding to soils, while it moves its way into the rootzone. Super clean water lacks nutrients and minerals that have these electrical charges that bind to soil. Therefore, the water tends to sit at the surface. This year, we installed an injector pump in the pumphouse that will “dirty” up the water before irrigation cycles. Specifically, potassium will be pumped at very low rate into the water as it leaves the pumpstation, with the objective to bring the EC of the water up to the level of 0.4 uS. This will help us be more efficient with our water use. EC stands for electrical conductivity and our water in Highlands is about the exact same as distilled water, with little to no EC.
The other downside of clean water is that it strips valuable nutrients from the soil as it moves through the rootzone. A rootzone is like a swimming pool. If you know anything about the old Gunite swimming pools, it is critical to maintain acceptable Calcium levels in the pool water. Why? If the calcium drops to low, the water, always trying to achieve equilibrium, will pull the calcium from the Gunite and before long, your pool is crumbling to pieces.
My hope is, this gives you a little more Insight into to science behind water management and irrigation practices, something we take very seriously. Like most of the golf course industry, it’s a world based on science and technology. This new irrigation system will not only improve the condition of the golf course, it’s also a water conservation tool that will serve Highlands CC well for the next 30 years.
The
irrigation system is controlled by an iPhone app, allowing total control from
anywhere in the world.