The Break We've Been Waiting For

It may sound unusual, but it was great to have an irrigation break, and repair this past week.  Why in the world would we want to have to deal with a break in August?  Well, for quite some time, we have seen the pump station's small pressure maintenance pump cycling about four times per hour.  This meant that the system was losing one gallon of water per minute somewhere...  

It should be noted that by most standards this really isn't a whole lot of water.  For perspective, municipal water systems, which provide our drinking water, often have leaks accounting for over 20% of the potable water supply they are pumping.

Pump cycling four times per hour.

While a gallon of pond water may not sound like much, we still wanted to know where it was going.  After all, small leaks can turn into big leaks.  The location of water loss was finally found in the back corner of the property behind #4 green.  With a large storm drain inlet just a few feet away, the water wasn't creating a puddle, or stream of any kind.

The repair was straightforward, simply requiring us to cut out a cracked 2" elbow and replace it.

You could say that the pump station is now "flat lining," which is great in this situation.  Below, you can see that the black line (indicating the current discharge pressure) is virtually unchanged for a full hour, and hovering right above the red line (the system set pressure).

 

Other than a lightning strike, this is the first break we have had in two years.  The total spent in irrigation parts to make these repairs was $30--not bad for a 35 year old system! 

A Welcomed Break

While we can typically find some reason to complain about the weather, even the most "glass half empty" grass grower would have a hard time coming up with any negative words about this past week's beautiful conditions. After a summer of some very tough weather, the reprieve was greatly appreciated by both greenkeeper and grass.  

This year, we performed our tee and fairway aerification earlier than ever.  Typically in this region, August 15 is considered to be a (relatively) safe time to pull the trigger on this practice.  For cool season turf, August means the shortest roots of the year--we rolled the dice and started August 5.  Fortunately, despite a whole lot of rain in August, the timing appears to have worked out well.

For the turf, it's not just about the lower daytime temperatures, but equally important are the cool nights.  Anytime we need a light jacket on an August morning, it is a good day.  As you can see below, even the afternoon high soil temperatures on #16 fairway this past week have been less than the daily low temperatures were back in early August.

Another bonus to this atypical cool weather has been an increase in green speed.  Again, we don't change our prep to the putting surfaces during the summer, but hot, sticky weather slows everything down.  While temperatures are warming back up this week, hopefully we are over the hump.

The Tines They are A-Changin'

We are always looking to improve any agronomic practice we perform on the golf course.  This year, in an effort to reduce the recovery time from fairway aerification, we made a fairly dramatic change to this process.  

We substituted our traditional large, heavy duty aerifier tine for a slightly smaller one which produces a cleaner hole, and will hopefully fill in more quickly.  In order to impact the same percentage of surface area, a smaller tine means we need to make more holes.  Therefore the aerifiers were setup with 50% more tines from side to side (36 versus 24).

 The downside to this, is that the tines we used on fairways, are better suited for the sand-based greens and tees.  We went through a lot of tines beating the fairway soil--somewhere around 700.  With three team members running the aerifiers, we added a fourth employee, the "pit crew" guy.  This individual was tasked with monitoring the machines, and was ready to change any tine as it broke.

A barrel of broken tines.

From what we've seen thus far, this aerification tweak looks like it was very effective.  Just three days post-punching, and #15 has some pretty happy turf. 

In reviewing a change such as this, we always have to ask if the juice is worth the squeeze.  Well, we definitely spent more money on parts and labor, however if the end result is less downtime for the fairways, we will likely stick with this method going forward.

Payback Time

Thanks to the change in timing for greens aerification, once again we have another August without this:

While we did run the aerifiers across the putting surfaces on Monday, we used an extremely small tine, and it's tough to see the holes just four days later.

Prior to this change in 2023, we had six weeks during handicap-posting season (three in May and three in August), when green speeds were dramatically impacted by aerification.

No longer losing a few weeks of good greens in both May and August should be something everyone can appreciate.

Goose on the Loose

This summer, we have seen a dramatic uptick in the amount of Goosegrass on the golf course, particularly in the primary rough.  The white appearance of Goosegrass treated with a post-emergent herbicide, may grab your attention more than an untreated plant.

There are a few possible explanations for the increase we're seeing with this weed:

• Early drought--If you think back to June, much of the turf was dormant due to high heat and lack of rainfall.  There is an old saying that a dense, healthy stand of turf is the best defense against weed encroachment.  With the turf being dormant, this may have allowed for more Goosegrass to germinate and become established.
• Lack of Uniform Coverage--We make our pre-emergent herbicide application in late fall, to prevent grassy weeds such as Crabgrass and Goosegrass.  The last two years, we have switched from using a granular product applied with a spreader, to a liquid product applied with a sprayer.  The active ingredient in both formulations is the same, however it can be more challenging to achieve complete uniform coverage in the contoured rough with a boom sprayer than it is with the tractor mounted spreader. 
• Herbicide Resistance--This may be the most probable cause of the issue, and it is also the most concerning. As this snippet from Rutgers points out, Goosegrass is known for this:

Going forward there are a few changes we will be making.  This will likely include returning to a spreadable product, as well as possibly changing the active ingredient used as a preventative herbicide.  Should these measures fail to prevent Goosegrass germination, we will be quick on the trigger to treat the weed with an effective post-emergent product.