Irrigation Upgrade Week 2

Must have been a sign for the week ..
A big turnout of volunteers this week to help with trenching and back-fill and a some fantastic weather made for a smoother week with a great  number of tasks accomplished.


 My thanks to the many volunteers who have come along, not only for the irrigation but for the greens mowing and bunker raking on competition days. To many to name individually,  know the staff and the club appreciate your efforts immensely. On that note if you do plan to turn up, we would appreciate advanced notice rather than just rocking up, we need to organise tasks prior to the day so all can be organised, it does make it more difficult allocating work on the spot when trying to work ourselves.

 We finished holes 11, 13 and 14 including flushing the irrigation lines and sprinkler install and have started down 15, Staff have pre-joined a number of fittings over the weekend to reduce time in the field for install so I am hoping to have 15 16 and 10 completed this coming week as a minimum. Meanwhile the contractors only have the 18th mainline to install and then will be installing the Greens sprinklers and wiring the fwy decoders. They hope to be complete by Friday !!!!.



We also had some interested passerby's, either looking for the water from the rain last week or waiting patiently for our new system 

Or looking for our new water feature on 14
 Little did they realise it was only temporary as a result of mainline flushing 

 Our own smaller lines didnt quite flood as much 
 
 All the same it felt good seeing the water come through...

 Finally I have been receiving some questions about the sprinklers and the differences between the stage 1 and stage 2 sprinklers, I will talk about that in an upcoming post soon.
Till then
Happy Hooking !!!

Popular posts from this blog

Saltene and Couch Grass

Image
I thought I would talk about this subject instead of what has been run of the mill course work updates lately, nothing like a bit of variety to keep it fresh... It is this time of year (summer if you didn't know better) the couch and saltene in the greens become more visible and start to out compete the bent grass. If you have been good students and followed the turf 101's on this blog you would know Bent is a cool season grass preferring cooler temps, Couch and Saltene both warm season grasses preferring hotter temps for optimum growth. So what happens when the two compete against each other year round ?   During the cooler months,  April through October the Bent grass out competes the Couch and Saltene, the Couch and Saltene are still there just not as pronounced as during the warmer months, thanks to their vigorous rhizomes even tho the bent has control of the top, the couch and saltene are waiting to pounce when warmer temps arrive due to their extensive rhizome syste
Read more

Hydraulic Oil Leak

Image
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, unfo
Read more

Fairways, Saltine and Merry...Xmas

Image
The front 9  fairway renovation went well with strong growth occurring, alleviating some compaction and more importantly allowing the gases exchange from the root-zone,  this should hold them in good position for summer. You would have noticed the yellowing saltine in the greens I have taken advantage of the mild weather conditions being more aggressive with measures for Saltine and Crab grass in the greens than previous years. The Saltine will stand out more so than normal as it discolours with the herbicide effect, as a result it may appear there is more than usual in the greens, there isn't it just seems that way with the discolouration making it stand out more. Unfortunately due to the vigorous nature of the grass, control measures are more for   suppression and long term control than immediate eradication. Further due to the high risks of photo-toxicity to the bent grass in warmer weather, product applications are ceased during summer. The initial treatment a
Read more