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.

Course Update

This week has been quite productive with all greens being renovated with solid 12mm tynes and topdressed with turf sand. We had great weather for the 2 days the course was closed for renovations and we were able to get the sand brushed into the core holes reasonably well by the time we opened the course on Wednesday. As is usual after renovations the greens will be quite furry for a while because it takes a while for the turf to grow through the sand and get the cutting height of the mowers back to normal height. We do this for several reasons - (1) we don't want to pick up the sand in the cutting units and damage the blades, and (2)  the turf is quite tender after the abrasive affects of rubbing the sand into the turf surface and we don't want to stress the plant more at an early stage of recovery.

12mm solid tynes at 150mm depth

Turf sand spread on 11th green

Cushman topdresser

During the week we also vertidrained the surrounds of the greens. While the greens and surrounds have been opened up with solid tyning we have taken the opportunity to treat them again with wetting agent and heavily watered the product to get it into the soil profile. This application will get us into early winter with hopefully a good, even moisture content through the soil profile.

One negative occurrence during the week was a damaged irrigation control cable near the 6th green that was caused by the vertidrain. Over the years we have vertidrained the surrounds of this green half a dozen times with out ever hitting the cable. This time the cable was severed and we found it using a cable locator(borrowed from Richard at Waitikiri GC) about 75-100mm below the surface. I am quite sure that this won't be the last time we hit a shallow cable because the reality is we don't know for sure where every bit of cable runs, and at what depth. In this situation we uncovered quite a length of cable and proceeded to repair it and bury it at a depth of 350mm where it won't be in danger of being hit with machinery in the future.

Cable break when hit by the Vertidrain 

Irrigation cable at a shallow depth

Course Update

This last week has continued with warm, dry and now, windy conditions. We have managed to keep the moisture content on the greens and tees to a good level and as usual this time of year the mounded high areas on the fairways tend to dry out. This summer we have applied wetting agent to the high areas on fairways as well as the greens and tees. This approach has paid dividends with tinges of green throughout all sprayed areas on the fairways. Not only has it held colour, but it has maintained a better turf density than previous years where it would normally thin out into bare spots. We are still at the early stages with this program and I would hope for better turf coverage each year as we progress. This is only part of our fairway program but it appears that it has been quite beneficial so far.

As I mentioned in the last post about the unusual sprinkler repair with the broken pieces of fibrolite pipe, how many times will this occur! Well I didn't have to wait long. This week the sprinklers on the ladies 6th tee wouldn't shut down properly. As these are a bank of 4 sprinklers controlled by one valve, the problem had to be in the valve. After dismantling the valve I found a large chunk of fibrolite pipe jammed in the valve housing. With the debris removed and valve reassembled, the sprinklers worked fine.

Valve for ladies 6th tee(note the tree roots from nearby trees)

Fibrolite pipe jammed in the valve

I had a small window of opportunity to spray the greens for weed control (Pratia & Cotula) this week. We had one morning with no wind early on so I managed to get a herbicide and insecticide application on with just under a fortnight to  go until renovations on the greens. By the time greens have recovered from the coring and topdressing the weeds should get quite a touch up and the Browntop bent should grow through the weak areas. Next week we will putting on a foliar spray of Sulphate of Ammonia to keep the turf ticking along. 

With no real rain in the short term forecasts we will remain vigilant with the irrigation and keep the greens in good shape so that they recover well from the renovations

Unusual sprinkler problem

I had noticed an unusual water pattern around one of our sprinklers on the 11th fairway on the weekend. When I turned the twin row sprinklers on to test them, one popped up normally and the other dribbled out and wouldn't pop up properly.

Irregular watering pattern on the 11th fairway

After dismantling the sprinkler, checking the valve assembly, solenoid assembly, selector stem and the screen at the base of the sprinkler casing, I reassembled the sprinkler and gave it a test run. Still no luck. With the sprinkler drive removed from the casing and manually turning the sprinkler on it appeared to have decent flow. I then reassembled the sprinkler again and gave it another run - still no good.

Removal of the sprinkler

Having tried everything I know to find an obstruction in the sprinkler the next step was the pipework. Starting with the swing joint I found shards of broken fibrolite pipe in one of the elbows and further investigation found more in the pipe connecting the swing joint. It took some time to remove it all and recommission the sprinkler.  Again another test and success!!!

Debris in swing joint

Debris from the pipe

This debris is the remains of damage caused by the earthquakes 4 years ago!!! Who knows how many more times we need to do this. 

Sprinkler now working perfectly

  

Course Update

With Summer in full swing our rough is drying out and we are getting good definition between the fairways and the rough. The  unmown areas are now drying out into wispy, tall rough that is giving even more definition.

The dry rough from 15th tee

Wispy rough looking toward the 4th green

So far this summer it has been very dry and with the new control system computer now operational watering has been fairly constant. We have been doing quite a bit of hand watering to try and keep the the soil moisture profile fairly even. Having applied wetting agent to more areas on the golf course, and using the moisture meter, we have had better and more accurate water application. The irrigation system has been reasonably reliable with the occasional repair being made to pipework, valves or sprinkler.

Sprinkler operating on the 12th green

Pipe repair at the 16th tee 

As  a reminder to members greens renovation is booked in for the 16th & 17th February.  Before that we will be venting the greens with 8mm pencil tynes to keep the moisture penetrating into the soil profile. As we have done all summer, sand dusting on greens will be continuing on a regular basis. 

One thing to note is there has been no Nitrogen fertiliser application since early November which has kept the Browntop bentgrass strong and the Poa under stress. I am generally fairly pleased with how the greens are coping with our dry summer and expect the greens to kick on after the February renovations.