Hydraulic Oil Leak

Over the weekend we had a Hydraulic Oil leak under the mower when mowing greens, unfortunately as it was pre-dawn mowing with a heavy dew, the operator only detected it when the sun came up after he was halfway through.

 

Of 13 greens mowed, 8 are effected of which 4 are cause for the most concern.

Wishful thinking, I am wondering, and will find out soon enough, with the greens renovations only just completed whether the vigorous growth we have encourage to recover from Reno's and the higher cut we were mowing at will lessen the impact and we may be able to cut out most of it....Experience tells me IT IS wishful thinking.

With this type of oil leak, it isn't so much the oil but the temperature of the oil that causes most of the damage, instantly killing the grass it contacts.

We have applied Activated Charcoal, and a dilute detergent to deactivate and dilute the oil, there isn't much more we can do I am afraid. 

We have sanded the 15th to see if that helps, unfortunately we don't want to much sand at this stage of the renovation recovery as we start lowering the heights, with this in mind I have decided not to sand the other effected greens and wait till Friday to see how much damage and what exactly is "lost" before progressing with the sand further.

Verti cutting and seeding will more than likely be required.

Just to answer a few questions before they are asked....

No it wasn't the new greensmower recently purchased, it was the old greens mower we were using, a common practice after renovations to save the greens cutting units from excess wear from the sand on the greens.

Hydraulic oil is almost colourless and leaks are very difficult to see when there is dim light, and the grass leaf is wet, (in this case from dew),under sunlight the affected turf would glimmer making detection easier, hence why the operator stopped at that point, the leak was under the mower making detection even more difficult

I am looking at a dye to colour the hydraulic fluid to avoid a repeat of the amount of greens affected, this depends on the manufacturers approval.

Yes I am frustrated, yes I am disappointed, yes I am p#$$ed off and yes the operator has been spoken to, and WILL learn from this 100%. More so it has happened, and my focus is to limit the damage, recover the areas and then make sure we reduce the risks of it happening again.