Feast or Famine

The pendulum seems to have swung past middle and on to the other extreme, hot and dry that is.  Whether or not this trends continues and how long it lasts are only answered by living through what summer brings us over the next couple of months.  It certainly is not the type of late spring weather that most people hoped for.  A nice even ramp up into summer would have been preferred, but this is what we have so we have to cope with it the best way possible.

The good news is that the warm season turf, bermuda and zoysia, love the weather of the past two weeks.  The fairways are filling in rapidly and the zoysia has recovered from the nutsedge control and looks great.  The fertilizer that was applied has given them a wonderful color and they are ready for a growth regulator application next week.  Other good news is that the warm temperatures have slowed the growth of the rough.  It is still thick in most areas but at least it is not growing gang busters anymore.

On the other side of the coin is the effect of the early heat on the greens.  They were doing just fine and it looked like the program was on the right track when the irrigation pump station decided that it was time to test our mettle.  On the night of the 2nd, it malfunctioned just after midnight and the greens did not water.  They still had good moisture content and they were hand watered during the day on the third.  That night,  after thinking that changes to the schedule would help, it did the same thing and the greens again did not water.  Again they were hand watered the next morning and looked reasonably good.  That afternoon the temperatures soared and the greens dried out too much and too fast to keep up with.  Again changes were made and the greens did water that Saturday night.  However, on Sunday during hand watering time, the cpu unit on the pump station failed preventing the pump station from turning on.  Finally after a couple of telephone calls, the station was switched to manual control in order that the greens could be cooled and irrigated.

The pump station company ordered new parts and they and the technician arrived on Wednesday the 8th.  Unfortunately our station is of an age (16 years) that it was built without a memory chip for backup.  What has happened is that the cpu has lost the program on how to operate.  It is supposed to be stored on this memory chip attached to one of the circuit boards, but it is not there.  Today the manufacturer thought they could supply a chip with the program drawn from the original records and have it to us early next week.  The technician will then be able to diagnose which board is faulty, replace it and then reprogram the cpu.

In the interim, the station has to be operated manually.  This requires first bringing the system up to operating pressure slowly, then turning on the heads desired and matching the outflow with the capacity of the pumps.  As the heads quit running, the pressure has to be watched closely and pumps shut off to prevent too much pressure building in the system and blowing pipe apart at the seams.  Needless to say it is a little nerve wracking and we have decided to only water greens at this point.  Tees were able to be irrigated Thursday morning and might be done again on Tuesday.  Greens take anywhere between an hour and four depending on how much water needs to be applied.  During the day we are able to open the #12 lake fill valve in the system that allows the small pump to run continuously while we hand water the dry spots on the greens.  The lake valve acts as a safety release keeping the pressure in the system from building.  Fairways and rough are not receiving any water at this point.

The upside to not watering the fairways is that the poa annua that survived last winter and could not be sprayed out is dieing quickly probably saving a herbicide application.  They also should be rolling quite good making your tee shots even longer.  Without irrigation the rough has slowed its growth and should be more playable.  The greens have suffered some but are being nursed  back to health.  Some turf has been lost mainly on edges where problems have surfaced before.  When the pump station is fully operational again, these areas will be dealt with using plugs.  Of course they have been other complications such as 3 heads that quit turning and 2 controllers that also quit.  Normal occurances for a 23 year old system but never the less very frustrating on this end.  The course really does look terrific right now even with all that has happened in the last week and hopefully you are out enjoying it.