8" Main Repair

Towards the end of the 2019 irrigation season we had noticed a leak forming in front of the ladies tee on 4 mountain in the location of the 8" transfer line.  It was minor enough to let it be until the winter and we got it addressed this week. 

Over 6' deep

The culprit

Repaired

The  tulle on the right are evidence that the leak had
been happening for some time. 

Weekend Fun

Sometimes I have to go out and find inspiration to write about something and sometimes it just appears.  That was the case this weekend when I went to the range tee and saw a 50ft geyser of water just in front of the tee.  With the full moon, it looked like a light coming down from above.  I quickly discovered that a 2" valve blew off the 6" mainline and was spewing about 500 gpm for who knows how long.  We got the water shutoff Saturday and Odilio and myself got it repaired Sunday morning. 

We had to use some bread to temporarily stop the drip of water so we could glue up.

What Was Suppose To Be Easy

It started off as just being a 500 sq ft bunker in which we were going to remove the sand, check the drains, and put new sand in.  It's 2 days later and not finished yet.  When we got to the drain, the entire 60ft length was filled with willow tree roots.  Crap.  The willow tree is 75ft away; go figure.  No problem, we'll just trench a new line.  Get the wire tracker so we don't break any pipes though.  We still located the pipe with the Bobcat trencher for double verification because single verification isn't how we roll here.  Double crap.  

The drain is in and the pipe along with cabling is finished.  The trench is almost full and we've got some rain coming just in time.  It'll be ground under repair for awhile. Who wants to play out of a bunker anyways.    

Ant Hills

The past few weeks we have begun to raise fairway and rough sprinklers that were more than a half an inch below the surface.  One golfer who passed by referred to all of the mounds of dirt on the first hole of the Canyon as ant  hills and I got a nice chuckle out of it.

In just one day, 6 of our staff members raised 30 heads.  Unfortunately that was on the first hole only.  What the guys have to do is first dig up the sprinkler down to the swing joint which is typically 2 ft deep.  Once the sprinkler is dug up, we remove the soil and backfill with sand while holding the sprinkler level.  In this case, we are using the old sand from the driving range tee project.  We do this because the sand is much easier to dig up if we ever have a problem with that sprinkler down the road.

All of this effort is to ensure that the water we apply is going where it needs to go.  When the heads are low, the bottom spray hits the soil around the sprinkler creating a wet spot at the sprinkler and a dry spot where that water was supposed to go.  Every drop counts more than ever.

Deep Watering FW's

Since I have been in the business, I have been a deep and infrequent believer when it comes to irrigation on the greens.  We'll run anywhere from 60 - 180 minutes of water from each head on greens and then shut them off for the next 4-7 days depending on the weather.  Not only do we have a strong and healthy root system, but Poa annua doesn't do as well with this watering method with less water at the surface. 

I was recently made aware of an article that Dave Wilber (@turfgrasszealot) shared about deep and infrequent watering, but not just on greens.  We had a closed nine at the time since we were aerating so I decided to water the Mountain course fairways for 60-99 minutes.  

Irrigation run times

I was skeptical at first since we were wet around the drains, which was expected, but our dry spots barely had a 1/2" of water.  Either way, I shut off the irrigation for the following night and watched to see what would happen.  I still needed to go out every morning and get some extra water on the dry spots (50 sprinklers vs. 400), but I didn't turn the Mountain fairway program on until Sunday evening which was 6 days later!  

Entire profile is moist and 

nice white roots coming 

out the bottom

Our soil profile consists of 1-2" of thatch with some sand/ top soil mixed in and below that we have heavy clay.  With the deep watering, I was able to wet the heavy clay on 75% of the fairway.  I was actually able to get a soil probe into the clay which is not normal for August.  When our surfaces start to dry out now, there is some moisture down below that is wicked up through capillary action.  

After almost 8 years at Cinnabar, I feel I have stumbled upon something that may change the way I irrigate the course going forward.  It has really got my brain churning and I couldn't be more excited.  This is just one of the many reasons I love being a superintendent!

My Miracle Maker

1st generation

We jokingly call our little red sprinklers our miracle workers because they work wonders on the golf course. With over 2,700 sprinklers on the course, you may wonder the need for such sprinklers, but they make all the difference in the world. 

It needs to be understood that no irrigation system is perfect.  We have an extremely good system, but there are multiple areas on the course that aren't spaced correctly or where the soil has a hard time taking water.  With these little "miracle" workers, we can set the sprinklers out for the entire day, shooting a finer mist than our larger irrigation sprinklers.  That water is put out so lightly that it doesn't run off and after a day or so of running we have complete saturation.  The results are green grass for two weeks before we have to put them back.  

2nd generation

I had a hard time finding our particular sprinkler since it is unmarked, but I finally came across something on Amazon (I think I saw my children for sale there too; they have everything).  The base is the same and the nozzle is actually better.  The link is here if you want some of your own miracles.  

Main Line Break

This past Monday we had the pleasure of a main line break near the cart staging area.  Just happened to be under the concrete as well; oh joy.  The timing was actually good because we had a concrete cutter on-site doing some work on the canyon cart paths.  They were able to chunk out the concrete before we left Monday and we had the same guys (Los Gatos Concrete) pour the new concrete Friday afternoon.  Below are some pics of the work as it progressed towards completion.

The culprit

The repair

Prep'd for concrete

Mud from Milpitas Materials

Ready for the weekend!!!

Geyser

Our mechanic Rodolfo sent me the video below last night of the geyser my guys made over the summer.  What  made this even more funny was that I was hosting a pesticide meeting with a dozen or so other superintendents.  I am still getting grief over it.  If you want to compare to Old Faithful geyser, watch the you tube video here.

Making Mistakes

I was hoping to write today about how we received 9,000 square feet of sod and how we completed the tees, but unfortunately that is not going to happen.  The truck that showed up had 9,000 square feet of bermuda grass on it, but I had ordered blue/ rye.  To top that off, I had an irrigation pipe break last night that was supposedly fixed yesterday.  It is only 0730 so I believe this qualifies as a bad start to the day.  Thinking positively, it can only get better from here; I hope!

As far as the sod goes, I am not going to lament over the mistake.  All I want to do is figure out how we are going to solve the problem.  I have been working with this company for ten years and I know they will make it right.  I wouldn't hesitate from buying from them again.  They are a great company with a good team.

While the irrigation problem wasn't good, I can bet that it will never happen again.  The picture shows the broken slip fix that was freshly glued yesterday.  As great as slip fixes are, they can be troublesome in high pressure situations.  What we have talked about to prevent this in the future is to put the sliding part of the slip fix on the low pressure side of things and more importantly, put a thrust block behind the T where all the pressure is.  A thrust block can be a bag of concrete or a piece of wood jammed in to hold it in place.  The guys should be done getting it fixed by now and they have now learned a valuable lesson.

While mistakes can be costly upfront, there are a lot of positives that can come from them.   After all, success isn't possible without making a few mistakes along the way.