Never a Dull Moment

I haven't posted anything for quite awhile, meaning I was on the busy side the last two months with irrigation, course, infrastructure renovations.  In the beginning of June into July we had a decent amount of precipitation allowing us not to irrigate as much, but as soon as I got back from my summer vacation. Mother nature turned on the furnace and dehumidifier at the same time. These dry conditions started to take a toll on our irrigation system and exposed all of our faults.

After diving into my pump station early this spring I nearly tripped over all the stuff inside because the past person taking care of the place had no regard for anything in the the shed. After cleaning I came across a giant crack in my jockey pump case. Again after fall blowout no one drained the pumps. $500 later I then had ONE working pump that flows approximately 200 gallons per minute. While I was waiting for parts for the jockey pump I had to use my other pump that is supposed to flow close to 500 gal/min at 100 psi. As I turned it on for the first time it only pushed 100 gal/min at 100 psi creating a interesting time trying to irrigate anything. Luckily enough we had perfect timing of rainfall and mild temperatures to help out with stress on the course.  

Above I had taken apart my pump after I had fixed my smaller jockey pump to figure out why my 40hp electric pump was flowing such a low amount of gal/min. Below is what I immediately found. 

It's almost frustrating to find stuff like this but a relief also, in the past no one has checked the screens on any of the pumps, and a large hole had developed on the bottom of the screen letting large particles (Rocks) enter into the pump clogging and damaging the vanes of the pump impeller. So after a quick call and $1100 later my primary pump is back to full capacity flowing close to 550 gal/min. Giving me a total of 750 gal/min though I'll never want to pump that crazy at least I can rest at night that all is good when I irrigate overnight.   

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After priming my irrigation system early in the year we came across a section that didn't get blown out properly, because someone shut off a valve in a low collection point. Causing the PVC to spiderweb and break. The total length of the break was around 100 feet. I have used a lot of machinery but never a backhoe. I am so thankful that one of our members is the store manager of Bobcat of Devils Lake. They let us use one for a couple of our projects and this saved me about 10 hours of pain staking digging in thick humic clay. I hate to admit it, but I had so much fun using that piece of equipment. I didn't want to give it back.

 

In early May I had blogged that we had a severe washout that took out the crossing from hole four to five tee. We had to haul around twenty yards of new, dry fill to put over the new 18 in drainage provided by Advanced Drainage Systems. I took a little redneck engineering on my part to fit the dam box on the new drainage. I used a a good section of the old culvert, and it fit perfectly over the poly culvert. Then connected it with the rubber seal we already had, so it with be water tight to prevent a washout again.    

culvert installation 

fill added in levels and repacked each time

almost done 

Finished product before cart path material was added. We also added bigger rock to help with stabilization.

The installers that put all the irrigation in back in the early 90's had put valve boxes around all the valves but not the quick couplers. If you don't know what a quick coupler is its just a quick access point to the irrigation to usually around a green to aid in hand watering greens. So I had my guys reset the couplers and put in valve boxes over them to protect my mowers from damaging the reels. The couplers in some spots were protruding out the surface about an inch. It may not seem like a lot but we mow our collars and fairways at a 0.500 of an inch and this was causing the reel of our mower to hit the top of the couplers. The installers in the past had even made the job more difficult by setting them in concrete. They even got so lazy they left the forms in the ground.    

After all my problems were solved with the irrigation I decided to tackle my bunker renovation that the past superintendents deemed unattainable. They left this bunker as ground under repair for the past five years.
So I'm beginning to see a trend now and I'm sure you are too. Lazy + Inexperience = Catastrophic Failure.
in the above picture I had hauled out around 50 cubic yards full of junk sand and clay mix. And thanks to the new construction of Decorated Wearables and Mike Yoder. I hauled in around 200 more yards of fresh dry fill to raise the bottom of the bunker and create a perfect slope for the water to drain with. Before the water was pooling at the bottom of the bunker/overgrown ugly hazard. Now after an inch of rain it dry and free of any water.

The previous area where the newly renovated bunker is, was always full of water around the green complex. For the past month or so I could not figure out why. With some troubleshooting I found that when I would turn on any heads in same satellite box, four or five heads would repeatedly turn on an off like a whack-a-mole machine. So I went straight to the source and looked at the circuit boards that control the heads and the above is what I found. Three of the six boards that control the irrigation heads were shorting out causing random heads to pop up. I also found out from an employee that the old mechanic was trying to recondition these same boards by re-soldering them and trying to make them work. I replaced these the same day any everything was back to normal. Each one of these boards costs around $250.  

The past week I had a good experience with water management because the one and only well company in town has been so busy, he couldn't make his way out here to help hook up the pond fill line. The past two weeks I could't irrigate my fairways because we had no water to pump. We do have a natural spring that flows water from the adjacent lake but without a pump it only flows around 50 gal/min. On a heavy irrigation program we flow right around 320,000 gallons in one night. One might think why cant you just turn it on well it needs to be plugged down six feet to stay below the frost line. So every year it needs to be raised six feet to take off the plug and hooked up to the fill line. Oh ya I forgot to mention that the whole thing weighs approximately 1300 lbs because it goes down 160 feet in the ground attached with three inch steel pipe. But at full capacity it pushes 350 gal/min and filled our pond in five days.    

While I was driving around the course this morning checking to see if we had any irrigation issues the night before. I noticed a really dry patch that maybe looked like an insect problem. I stuck a shovel in the ground and hit something solid turned out to be this beautiful boulder. It took about an hour to dig around enough to get some chains on, and yank her out of the ground. This is why I love my job! Every day out here holds something new and exciting that it decides to shove in my face!   

   

April Showers?

As we had around a foot of snow in the end of March it made for a interesting spring melt. I have been venturing out around the course in the last couple of weeks keeping a curious eye on tee boxes, greens, and drainage collection areas I had found that due to efforts of spraying fungicides and fall cleanup efforts damage was very minimal. Mostly abiotic stresses have occurred leaving lots of water in catch basin areas and large areas. Due to the depth of the frost all the drainage around the course was frozen.

Flooded drainage catch basin on right green side bunker area of 4. 

Drainage line between 4 green and the start of 5 fairway that feeds into the main drainage ditch.

Last frozen section of drainage to thaw closest to the tee on 15.  

With our cool weather in March and beginning of April we had a little Pink Snow Mold pop up on 9 green. We had a little snow cover that extended into march and prolonged cool and wet days that gave the disease the perfect environment to harbor this fungus. But with our 60 degree temps the disease symptoms slowly

faded away with the warm temps.

Close up of the front left part of 9 green.

Larger view of the lighter but larger affected areas.

Any holes that were significantly covered with snow also suffered from Snow Mold, unlike Pink Snow Mold the Grey Snow Mold on the fairways needs snow cover to develop symptoms. Just about every hole that has trees protecting them in the winter was affected. With a little bit of TLC these areas should bounce right back. The rough has not really been affected at all by the damage, and the disease symptoms were mainly confined to the fairways. 

#2 Approach riddled with a little bit of Vole and Grey Snow Mold damage.

View from #2 green looking at the approach. 

As we all make mistakes in our careers we sometimes forget to do things or make errors time to time. But here is a perfect example of what some people would think is disease. I fact the applicator forgot a pass or forgot to turn on the boom. So symptoms from Grey Snow Mold appeared from the lack of protection.

  

#6 Par 3 men's tee.

I guess around ten to fifteen years ago the club went through a little bit of a remodel updating some holes and irrigation. But to save money they literally cut corners to save on pipe. Instead of running the main line twenty yards to the nearest crossing they just went across the drainage ditch. They get an A for effort on the use of HDPE pipe, but poor execution on follow through. Now the wire that runs along pipe has broken causing the heads not to pop up.    

  

On a Brighter note as I said before I went around the course peeking under the covers, and what I found was very comforting. The greens are starting to green up relatively nice for the cool dry weather we've had so far.  

Underneath #6 green's cover. 

Number five looks the best out of all the uncovered greens with nice color and no symptoms of disease or stress.

#5 green 

So with any little bit of luck we can start golfing in two weeks and have nice weather in the 60's to 70's. But don't be shocked to see a little shot of snow in may. Just be thankful we don't have to deal with the weather they had south of us on Wednesday, April 16th.   

Spring Has Sprung

Wicked Waterways 

The time for golf is nearing and I thought we might as well start the blog off right with a picture of an epic failure on course. Here you are viewing the nice sight where the damn that keeps the river at an aesthetically acceptable height has now froze. So this weekend that we had temps up in the 50's created a lake on hole 10 from the creek to the main drainage ditch. The water was so fierce that the outlet of the water has eroded a three foot trench perpendicular to the main path to get to the green and next tee. I had the choice of digging in freezing water or let nature take it's course with our mid 60's temps today. I chose to let nature do the hard work.

     In the two pictures above you can see the thawed dam boxes that can control the height of each section of the drainage ditch. It's a solid theory in the summer, but when we already had two feet of ice it creates a back log of water pretty fast. Two of the three boxes are wide open but the last one that controls drainage from 10 approach and its drainage ditch is full of ice, and is restricting flow creating a huge lake. So hopefully with some dam luck we should see the issue fix itself in the next couple days. As for the cart path you might see a little better setup after it's fixed.