Course Update

Since the last post we have managed to vertidrain the fairways one more time taking advantage of the relatively dry conditions. By creating more channels in the soil profile we have a better the chance of getting rid of surface water when we do get heavy rainfall. 

We have kept an eye on the water table recently on an area on our 17th fairway where we had dug a sump. Last winter the water table was sitting at just 300mm below the level of the fairway. At the moment we haven't hit the water table and we have dug down 600mm. All very promising with us reaching the middle of our winter.

We haven't reached the water table at 600mm

One of the downsides to vertidraining areas of the golf course is the damage it can cause to the irrigation control cable. As I have mentioned previously there are areas of cable that have been installed at a shallow depth and every now and again we strike the cable with the machine and we eventually lose power to the watering system. This has been the case recently on an area where the fairway had been extended closer to the ladies tee. Unfortunately this area had the cable installed at approximately 75mm depth and at some point the tynes of the vertidrain had punctured the cable casing and damaged the wire.
Once this problem has been repaired we will check the entire course with the cable locator and check for any other problem areas so that we are in good shape for the summer watering season.

Setting up the cable locator

Cable damage

Cable installed 75mm deep

Nice frost

Today has started with a -3.8 degree frost that will stay around for some time. We are one of the few courses in Canterbury that allow play during a frost so we do our best to limit damage by asking members to keep cart travel off the fairways and away from greens. I must say I don't see what the attraction is in playing golf in these conditions.

18th fairway

9th green

Trundler marks that will be black tomorrow

Keen golfers

Course Update

We have now finished the vertidraining of all fairways and are in a bit better position as far as drainage goes if we start getting more frequent rainfall. I have recently checked the water table level on the 17th fairway to see how we are looking compared to this time last year. The water table at the moment is about 500mm below the fairway surface (this time last year it was at 300mm below the surface) so we have more chance of the fairway draining in the event of a large amount of rain falling.

One thing to point out at the moment is the continual loss of gum trees around the course. For no particular reason, large well established gum trees are dying in random places around the course. The latest gum tree to die is between the 2nd fairway and 17th tee and is the fifth large gum tree to die within the last 2-3 months.

Dead gum near the 17th tee 

With the onset of cooler, damper conditions we are always on the lookout for diseases that can occur this time of year. The main disease we get this time of year is Fusarium and mainly affects the greens. We normally have a couple of areas that tend to show signs of disease and these indicator greens guide us on when or if we spray to treat the problem. Recently these hot spots increased in activity so we decided to get a fungicide out on all greens to protect them from major damage as the environmental conditions were very favourable for the spread of Fusarium.

Typical signs of Fusarium

Another recent irrigation repair was made to the control cable near the back of the 11th green. A fault appeared and we had no communication to any sprinklers down the 10th and 11th fairways so I knew that a cable was severed. As we had recently finished vertidraining I suspected a shallow cable was cut. Knowing roughly the position of the cable and what sprinklers were affected I worked out that the damage was done in an area not recently vertidrained. It turns out that it was old damage from vertidraining surrounds that suddenly gave out.

Cable damage near the 11th green (note the burnt ends of the cable totally separating the wire)

Recently we had a heavy morning fog which closed in suddenly leaving the golf course looking very eerie. Below are some photos from the 10th fairway.

  

Course Update

It has been a while since the last post so I thought I would update everyone about what has been happening. With short working weeks with Easter and Anzac Day, as well as being short staffed due to a family bereavement, it has been fairly slow progress with the fairway vertidraining.
We will finish all vertidraining early next week and it should help with removing surface water when we eventually get heavy rainfall. This month has bought a change in weather with cooler conditions, regular rainfall without any downpours and some strong winds. Winter is just around the corner.

The cooler weather has bought about a slow down in turf growth so the mowing has reduced and cutting heights have been raised slightly to maintain good turf density through winter. One issue we deal with this time of year is the increased number of worm castings on the surface of the fairways. The castings get smeared on the surface with machinery, golf carts and foot traffic and the fairways look quite muddy. A few years ago we had a chemical that had good long term control of the worms, but unfortunately that is now off the market and there is nothing that is available that has good control and not too expensive. We are trying to acidify the surface of the fairways with regular applications of Sulphate of Ammonia to try and discourage the worms. This will be an ongoing process.

Fairway Vertidraining

We have started vertidraining the fairways with 18mm solid tynes to try and break up the hardpan under the surface. At the moment we are concentrating on the low areas on fairways that caused us problems last year with ponding for long periods of time after we received heavy rain early last year.

We have had a report done on our drainage issues in these areas by NZSTI and one of the recommendations in that report was to try and shatter the layer of  heavy, silty loam that sits on top of the sand profile. Our worst layer is on the 17th fairway which is more than 300mm thick in places and vertidraining will only punch down to about 250mm deep. I am hoping that we have some shattering affect that will crack through the layer in places and give us better water infiltration when we do get heavy rain. At least we will have a lot more air space in the soil profile that will hold more moisture when it does rain and hopefully get it away from the surface.

At the moment we have vertidrained the low areas on the 8th, 9th &17th fairways 3 times and increased the tyne depth 25 mm each time because the ground is so hard and the machine can't cope with full depth straight away. We are now at 175mm deep and will probably need to tyne these areas at least 3 more times before we are at our maximum depth. When we have completed these areas we will start on all fairways before winter hits. Most of our fairway drain fairly well because we don't have many areas with thick layers of silty loam so these won't need to be treated so severely and to such a depth. We should be able to easily punch holes down to 150-175mm without much problem as long as we avoid shallow pipework and cable which is always a possibility.

vertidrain with 18mm solid tyned

vertidrain holes in one of the hardpan areas on 17th fairway

Rain

Overnight our weather station recorded 11.7mm of rainfall which is the highest single rain event in 24 hours since 18/6/14.
Our yearly total for 2015 of  42.6mm is down half on the historical average of 83mm for the first 2 months of the year and our total of 123.9mm for the last 6 months is also down more than half on the historical average of 268mm.

Overnight rainfall data

Soaking rain on Friday

I hope this change of seasons doesn't bring the rainfall that we received in March & April of last year where we were saturated in several parts of the golf course. 

Course Update

 This week we are seeing continued progress on the greens after the renovations with good turf growth and filling in of the tyne holes. The sand has mostly disappeared and we are gradually lowering the mowing height. In fact Saturday morning we were back to 4mm height but because of the excessive leaf growth it is still a bit furry. By the end of this week we should be pretty much back to normal conditions on the putting greens.

Good turf cover after 10 days

This week we vertidrained the tees to keep the water infiltration continuing through the soil profile. We are still having warm, dry conditions so this procedure helps with getting water to where the turf needs it - the rootzone.

Vertidraining the 5th tee

We also had to make an irrigation repair to a section of old, grey PVC pipe behind the 7th green. Because it was in quite a sandy area we didn't become aware of it until Tuesday. The leaking water would go straight to ground until a big enough hole appeared in the pipe and it then showed at the surface.

Next week's weather looks like continuing the trend of warm conditions with Monday forecast to be 31degrees. There is some rain in the forecast later in the week so fingers crossed, we get a good dumping of rain to freshen things up. Because of our irrigation systems capacity, it isn't possible to get the required amount of water to the fairways during a run of very warm to hot weather. We irrigate tees and greens to their needs but have to hold back on the fairways a bit or we end up running sprinklers all morning.