Year in Review

As I look back and read all my blog posts from this past season, I feel like our team had a successful year. Being my first year as  a Superintendent I really don't have anything to compare this year to, but I definitely feel satisfied with the progress we made on and off the golf course.

The amount of unknowns on the property definitely surprised me. I have been used to working for trained Superintendents that have had their respective golf courses infrastructure, records, and all other aspects of golf course management up to date and in working order. This was not the case at Dinosaur Trail as it pretty much took all season just to get the course functional.

I said I would never be one of those crazy Superintendents that spends the night at the golf course, watching the irrigation system, but by mid May I already had a few night under my belt in the pumphouse. There was a few things I never thought I would do as a Superintendent, but your perspective quickly changes when it is your golf course.

Many people in the past few weeks have asked how my first year as a Superintendent was. I can honestly say I have never learned as much in one season as I did this past season. It was definitely a struggle at times and I can remember days when I wondered what I had got myself into, but with the support of an awesome crew we eventually came out on top. I came into this position deciding I needed to change pretty much all aspects of the turf care operation. We completely changed the cultural and fertility programs, but the biggest change was in the turf care team. With the exception of 2 individuals, with one being the mechanic, the turfcare team was completely overhauled. We had our growing pains at the start of the season, but by August we were a well oiled machine. Without this great team we would have never accomplished the amount of projects we completed. I look forward to having many of our team members return next season.

I was lucky to have two guys on the crew this year with turfgrass education. A big thanks goes out to Colin McKenzie and all the work he put into the irrigation system this summer. You could pretty much find him in a hole or changing out heads on a daily basis. Without his contributions and work ethic the irrigation system would still be a mess. I would like to wish him good luck in his new position as an Assistant Superintendent at the Petroleum Club in Edmonton. He definitely has all the tools to be successful in the business, as I like to think, we gave him tonnes of practice and hopefully he learned a thing or two as well.

Andrew Smith came to Dinosaur Trail this season as a first year Assistant Superintendent. It did not take him long to step up and prove himself to the crew and myself. He was invaluable to the golf course this season, as when I was away from the course he seamlessly took over. I was very proud to see him grow over the season as a turfgrass manager that could pretty much deal with any issue on the golf course. As I write this he is in the process of finishing up his Turfgrass Management Degree from Olds College. I look forward to having him back next season where we can continue to build on where we left off this fall.

I am currently in the process of planning for next season as well as taking some time off. The course is under a nice blanket of snow and happy with how it has wintered so far. The cultural and fertility plans are complete as well as the budget, now I am starting to focus on projects and course improvements for next season. My plans are definitely ambitious for next season as we continue to work towards improving Dinosaur Trail.

Finally I would like to thank our GM, Scott Westman, all other Dinosaur Trail staff members, the board of directors, and the membership for their continued support of the Turf Care Team. The support from the community of Drumheller has been second to none and I look forward to continuing this into 2013. Building relationships is important to me, and I believe it is my job to educate everyone at the golf course about turfgrass maintenance. Feel free to call or email me anytime if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them.

I would like to wish everyone a happy holiday season and a prosperous 2013. I look forward to seeing everyone at the course next season

Waiting Game

I was hoping we would have the golf course all ready for winter, but the snow and cold temperatures that have been with us for the last two weeks have thrown a wrench into our plans.

Header for compressors

Q.C left running for a bit

We completed the irrigation system blowout on the 23rd and 24th of October, with about 5 inches of snow on the ground. For the most part everything went as planned, as we had no issues with sprinkler heads freezing and we could view all heads popping through the snow. Our biggest challenge was maneuvering around the course, especially on the back, due to slippery conditions and large snow drifts. Thank you to Myles for allowing us to use his quad for blowout, as without it we would have never been able to complete the back nine blowout. For blowout we use 4, 185 cfm compressors from a local equipment rental company in series. All compressors are connected together via a header which then connects to the irrigation system with a larger hose. Our front and back nine irrigation systems are completely separate from one another except at the pump house, so this configuration allows us to use smaller compressors to get blowout done. During blowout our goal was to maintain a pressure around 40-45 psi, this was easy attainable with our compressor configuration.

Andrew running through controllers

Starting off with a little slideshow in the Tournament Center

On October 11th we also had the Olds College Turf Management students come tour the golf course. It had snowed the day before so most of the course was covered with a blanket of snow. I really enjoyed the opportunity to answer questions and have conversations about being a young superintendent at a smaller facility, as well as the specific challenges we deal with at Dinosaur Trail. They also took the opportunity to tour the golf course, but most of the interest was to see our unique back nine. I look forward to having future classes visit the course, hopefully on a nicer day when we can actually see the turf!

Andrew and myself with the students

 In the next few days we plan to start clearing greens of snow to start our final winter prep for greens surfaces. We still need to apply our final fungicide application as well as anti desiccant, before we finish with a heavy topdressing. The back nine greens will also have permeable greens covers installed on them along with some ridges getting extra protection of cocoa matting. Our team needs around 4 days to complete these tasks, so hopefully the next 7 to 10 days will give us the window we need to properly prepare the greens for winter. Once these tasks are completed I will be able to stop worrying about putting the course to bed and focus on completing my budget for 2013.

Thanksgiving Update

Our Crew enjoying our Turf Care Thanksgiving Potluck this past Friday

The past month for the Dinosaur Trail Turf Care Team has been a busy one forsure. Numerous wind storms have taken down many aging Poplar trees, highlighting the need to develop a tree management plan this upcoming off season. Most of the trees on the property have exceeded their life expectancy as a "nurse" tree and have became a liability for the golf course. Wind gusts of 80-100 km/h hit the course a few weeks ago, leaving the course a mess. Thanks to our hard working turf care team and a dozen volunteers we re-opened the course two days later, with very little debris present on the course

Trees down around the 4th Green

1/2" hollow tines, 2x2 spacing
6 inches deep

More recently we also completed a deep tine aeration with assistance from Rory Hoyt and his equipment. In just under 10 hours we were able to core, clean up, topdress, and work in sand on 19 greens. We had a perfect day for aeration, as it was warm, sunny, and windy, which help facilitate us in filling the aeration holes with just under 40 tonnes of sand. The greens cleaned up great and have recovered very well in the past week. We applied a Floratine foliar application of nutrients 4 days prior to our aeration to all greens except our putting green to speed up aeration recovery. I am very happy with the results, as there is noticeable difference in recovery between our control green and sprayed greens.

The last few weeks of the golf season will be busy for the Dino Trail Turf Care Team. We are down to a solid crew of 6 and with leaves coming off the trees on the front nine, alot of our time will be spent dealing with them. As well we have the Olds College turfgrass management program coming to spend a day with us this week. Being an Olds College graduate I am looking forward to discussing with the students my experiences as a first year superintendent as well as the challenges and successes we have had a Dinosaur Trail this year.


Greens after topdressing

Blow out of the irrigation system will be done on the 23rd and 24th, until then we continue to deal with failing glue joints, and incorrect repairs done in the past. Andrew has become very efficient in these repairs, as I am pretty sure we can both can do these repairs in our sleep. To date we have completed over 40 piping repairs this season along with replacing over 60 irrigation heads. I am looking forward to blowout and 6 month break from having to fix any irrigation issues.

After blowout we will plan to apply our final fall fungicide application, which also may end up being our first fungicide app of the season, if the disease pressure continues to be low. Other than a little snow mold in the spring we have not seen any disease on our greens. I believe we can contribute this to our hot arid temperatures and the lack of humidity in the air this summer.



Greens 1 week after aeration

Following our fungicide app we will apply an anti- dessicant to the greens, followed by a medium topdressing to protect the crown of the plant of the turf on the greens. Finally the greens on the exposed back nine will be covered with permeable tarps and the ridges prone to drying out with be covered in cocoa matting.

Andrew has recently completed our new washpad and irrigation test station that is fed by the irrigation system. He has done a great job on both accounts, helping our team save time with a more efficient washing system and the ability to ensure an irrigation head works properly before installing them in the field. He has spent the last week rebuilding heads to ensure we have a wide variety of replacement heads in stock for all areas of the golf course. 

Finally I have an interesting picture from our back nine. We have a major issue with bentonite washing on to our 18th fairway. The bentonite "topdresses" the turf and smothers it in a sense. Mark Jull from Turf Canada was out afew weeks ago taking soil samples and I showed him these problem areas. He took some large core samples to play around with any we continued on our way. A few days later I drove by the problem area and took the picture below. I did not think that anything would be able to overcome the 3 to 4 inches of bentonite that has migrated onto the 18th fwy in certain places. With the addition of an aerator to our fleet of equipment next season, I plan to punch these areas continously to see if we can alleviate the issues caused by the bentonite.

Bentonite area on 18th fwy

Good to luck to fellow turfgrass managers in the final stages of the golf season working towards getting their respective golf courses ready for winter. Another season is almost in the books, and personally I am looking forward to some down time to recharge my batteries, reflect on this season, and start planning for 2013.


September Update

It is hard to believe the course has been open for 5 months with hopefully another 6 weeks of good weather ahead of us. We have not received any frost since early May, but morning temperatures are usually in the 5 to 10 degree range. Clipping yields for greens have drastically reduced to the point where we have stopped applying growth regulator, and our main goal going into the fall is to keep the greens as healthy as possible. In the upcoming weeks we will start to raise the HOC on our greens gradually while incorporating 2 to 3 roll days a week.A deep tine core aeration will take place in the third week in September, allowing for ample time for the greens to heal before turf becomes dormant.

The last few weeks have kept us busy at Dino Trail. The irrigation system has decided to cause us more problems, as two leaks on the mainline were repaired and more heads were replaced. We have repaired or replaced over 100 heads on the course this season, with still another 15 heads needing to be addressed on the back nine. As well the bearings failed in our river pump resulting in the pump seizing and needing to be replaced. In the next two weeks we plan to install our new wash pad and irrigation test station which will help save alot of time and money.

Finished Cartpath on Hole 14

 As well we completed the prep work for the cartpath on the 14th hole, so that Enviropaving out of Red Deer could come in last week and install the rubberized asphalt. Not having any experience with the product I did not know what to expect, but I am very happy with the end result. The company installing the surface has never done such a big job, as they are used to doing walkways and driveways. This resulted in them using three times as much rubber and binding agent compared to what they had budgeted for. The process of laying the rubberized asphalt is very labour intensive, as everything is done manually other than the mixing of the rubber with the binding agent. The key to the products strength when being laid on gravel is the use of Eco-Grid under the product. It helps displace the weight traveling over the surface evenly and provides a solid base.

Overall this product is going to provide a great non skid surface on a serverely sloped cart path. The total area of the path done was just under 3000 square feet, with the minimum thickness of the rubber surface being 1 1/2 inches. The product is an expensive alternative to regular asphalt, but with a 5 year warranty and with grants available to cover the costs, it turned out to be the best option for us. In the future I may attempt to lay some of the product in house, or use the Eco-Grid in high traffic areas under turf to prevent compaction. By far the biggest cost in the installation of this product is labour. as a 2000 lb bag of rubber crumb is around $350 dollars and a drum of the binding agent is around $1000. A close estimate for this project would be around $10 a square foot. This includes the Eco-Grid, gravel, rubberized asphalt, and does not include in house labour.

The gravel base rolled and compacted followed by
the installation of the Eco-Grid

Filling the Eco-Grid with 3/4 crush

Enviropaving trailer with mixer and rubber storage bin

Drums of binding agent. One drum does a 2000 lb bag of rubber crumb

Using a workman to haul the product to the cartpath

Ryan and his crew laying the product

August Update

9th Hole

It is hard to believe we are already a week into August, but so is the case. Since my last post we have been focusing the majority of our time on improving our putting surfaces and getting all the kinks out of our irrigation system. It is not too uncommon for us to have a handful of leaks a week, with most of them being attributed to failing glue joints or poor repairs in the past. Andrew and Colin have done a great job of keeping the system operating, especially with the mid 30 degree temps we have seen the past few days.

In the last two weeks we have aerated greens along with laying 1600 sq ft of sod on greens 2,3,4,7, and 9 to repair areas that were too large to repair with plugs. All the problem areas were located on the clean up pass of the greens, so the new sod will have very little impact on playability. We are cutting the new sod at a higher height than our normal greens height, so hopefully by the end of the month we will have the new sod at the same height as normal greens height.

Boys stripping the sod off of 3 green

What the new sod on 9 looks like

The other night while out handwatering the new sod I had a good conversation with one of our members getting in a quick nine before dark. He quizzed me with afew questions I have heard before, even at my own family gatherings. The first one being "What I plan to do for the winter?" and the second " It took you two years of college to learn how to grow grass?". In the past I was annoyed by these questions, but I have learned to realize that our job as turfgrass managers is to educate others about our profession. I truly believe that these questions are not ignorant, but uneducated. I try my best to stop and talk to as many people as I can and explain things like why the Poa makes the putting surfaces bumpy later in the day. Or how having our sprayer down and missing our scheduled Primo application leads to slower greens in the afternoon.

Along with all the other hats we where on a daily basis, I believe educating our staff and golfers could be the most important aspects of our profession to help ease the pressure we are under to provide a great working environment , and consistant playing conditions. I know the pressure we put on ourselves is more than anyone can put on us, but by using education we can make those times when things are going as well as we would like, alot less stressful.

So if you have a question feel free to stop me on the course and ask, that is what I am there for, along with afew other things.

On a final note I would like to say congrats to Bruce Lemessurier on his first hole in one. Bruce is daily morning golfer and helps with our junior program from time to time. I also happened to be in the clubhouse eating lunch when he bought everyone a round of drinks. It was pretty neat to hear him and Ian Jones, his witness, explain how it all went down.



Bruce and his hole in one on 12



Time Flies

It has been awhile since I have even looked at my blog until today. It is hard to believe a month has gone by so fast, but the last 3 and half months have been a blur since opening day so I guess it is par for the course. I just took a glance at the goals I set for our team in February for this upcoming season, it is fair to say I underestimated the task we were presented with. We continue to slowly chip away at the tasks and projects we have planned to complete, but our irrigation system continues to take valuable man hours away from course improvement work. Without the long hours and dedication of Andrew and Colin our system probably would not be anymore than 70% functional. At present time we are around 96% functional and may even be able to start looking system efficiency in the near future.

Working 70 to 80 hour weeks since May has definitely started to effect Andrew and myself so both of us needed to get away and recharge our batteries. I have never taken 6 days off in a row during the golf season, in my ten years in the industry, but it was just what I needed. I came back motivated and recharged this week, ready to continue to make strides in the last half of the season. Our goals for the rest of the season are to improve plant health and playability.

We continue to use herbicides to control clover and dandelions, but with thin turf on the back nine fairways, foxtail has become an issue. I plan to overseed all fairways on the back nine in the fall to create a better stand of turf for the future to help fight weed infestations.  and use a pre emergent herbicide.

Some upcoming practices and projects we will be completing in the next week or two are: solid tine aeration of greens, sodding of weak areas on front nine greens, completion of our bentgrass nursery, prep and seed septic field area, and finish 14 cart path with enviro-paving.

Thanks to everyone from Dinosaur Trail for their positive comments on the golf course this year. In my mind we are not anywhere near the conditions I would like us to be in, but we continue to make strides and it is nice for the crew and myself to hear kind words about the course. I really enjoy going to work everyday, taking the time to stop and talk to as many people as I can, and getting all the feedback that I can.

I leave you with a little slideshow I have created of pictures I have taken over the past few weeks around the golf course, hope you enjoy!

Feast or Famine

Tunnel 5 feet full of water

The last two weeks have been interesting for the Dinosaur Trail turf care team. In my last post I was talking about drought conditions, now I find myself dealing with an abundance of moisture. In the past week we received over 10 inches of precipitation. The majority of it falling on the 13^th of June triggering a flash flood. One 24 inch culvert is expected to handle run off draining to the river for an area larger than a section of land. Normally it can accommodate  daily run off, but during this event it was undersized. Our 8 x 10 foot transportation tunnel that runs under the highway doubled as a culvert, allowing the water to flow freely across the front nine to the river. I believe without the tunnel we would have been dealing with some major flood clean up and highway erosion. The course handled the water relatively well with it only needing it to be closed for two days. As of this morning, most of the standing water in bunkers and on fairways has dissipated, so playing conditions continue to improve.

River running across the course up to 20 ft deep in some spots

Hard to see, but water on the front of 16 green

Dan working on drainage

With the recent moisture and warm temperatures the turf has started to grow like crazy, hopefully this week we can get caught up on rough and fairways since we have been unable to mow for the last 3 days. The greens are starting to fill in nicely and this week we are going to start applying Primo Maxx to our greens. Growth regulators have never been used on Dinosaur Trail so I am excited to see the results in the next few weeks.

This week we plan to finish and clean up areas that Dan Funk has been working on the past few weeks. This includes the septic field on the first hole and putting the final touches on the 14^th cart path before the recycled tire product is laid. We also have some cleanup to do from the flooding as a large amount of bentonite has washed onto the 18^th fairway and we must remove it before it kills the turf. The rain gave me the chance to see how the water moves through the back nine and determine where drainage is needed to prevent erosion. Before we continue to improve the cart paths on the back nine we will need to address the drainage.

Working on 14 cartpath

fresh water shrimp plugging heads

This past week we also installed wye strainers on our irrigation system to prevent sprinkler heads from being plugged or damaged by foreign bodies entering the irrigation system. We have had some major issues with fresh water shrimp plugging our heads , these wye strainers will eliminate this and save valuable man hours spent flushing heads. As well we will receive our new PLC this week for our pump station which is long overdue. This will speed up the process of troubleshooting the irrigation system, as we still have around 50 heads to replace and many more to adjust. I am hoping by mid July the irrigation system will be close to 100% operational. We have made great strides on the irrigation system as we maybe had 30% of the irrigation system operating properly at the start of the season.

In the upcoming weeks our team plans to really focus on our greens and repairing all winter damage with plugging or sodding. The tees were aerated, over seeded, and topdressed last week so hopefully we will see some improvement on the front nine tees from this.

Overall I believe we continue to make progress and this is all due to the dedicated crew we have. I wish we were further along in meeting the goals I have set, but I need to be realistic as we spend a lot of time dealing with inefficiencies and putting out fires. I look forward to the time when all areas of turf care are running efficiently and we can really start improve the golf course.

As I look back at the last 4 months as my time as a Superintendent, I would have never thought the learning  curve would have been so extreme. In applying for this position I figured I was prepared to make the jump from an assistant. I never figured I would be pushed to my limits the way I have been. If I would have known what challenges I would have needed to overcome at Dinosaur Trail, I honestly don’t know if I would have accepted the position. Now that I am into the thick of it and things are turning around I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. I have never learned so much or used the word “unbelievable” in my vocabulary in such a short period of time over the past ten years in the turfgrass industry. I look forward to having my personal life move off the back burner and be able to enjoy more of the summer.

Making the Turn

The month of May has been an interesting one for the Dinosaur Trail Turf Care Team. In the last 20 days we have received less than 10 mm of rain, so that has put a lot of stress on our outdated and damaged irrigation system. The Programmable Logical Controller or PLC for short that controls the variable speed motors on our turbine pumps, no longer operates, so all watering must be done with the pumps running in the manual setting. This overrides any high pressure and low pressure shutdown safeties and means that someone must be always keeping an eye on the pressure while watering. This has lead to some long nights on the golf course and a lot of coffee consumed. There is a light at the end of the tunnel as our PLC will be updated within the next few weeks, and I look forward to sleeping in my bed and not at my desk. To date we have replaced upwards of 25 damaged sprinkler heads, and have at least another 30 to go, not to mention the leveling of another 40 heads.

 I have inherited greens with some pretty severe hydrophobic conditions, so we have been applying wetting agent and doing a lot of hand watering, which in the last few days have started to show some improvement, but I am still not happy with where they are at. The growing conditions as of late have been great, but we really have not been able to take advantage of them, as we are just trying to keep our heads above water and not let the course regress.

This past week started off on a positive note as we installed new irrigation for our range tee and practice green. This area has been without water since the start of the year due to major spiral fractures caused by improper blowout. We abandoned the current piping and now have a solid system in place that can be expanded if we decide to improve our range fairway.

On Tuesday we attempted to repair a small leak in our sewer line down to our septic field which is located on the left hand side of the 1^st hole. One thing lead to another and we found the field had a major blockage in it and that many of the lateral lines were at least 50% contaminated with solids. I do not consider myself very knowledgeable on septic fields but I quickly had to learn. With the help of Dan Funk we repaired the blockage and replaced 10 of the lateral lines in the septic field, now the system is operating as it was intended to.

Old lateral that is contaminated 50% and has no drainage rock

 

 

New laterals being installed properly

septic field area ready for topsoil and seed

This week we start in on drainage and cart path repair work. Dan will be installing catch basins to deal with water that erodes our cart paths by the tunnel to the back nine and the 14^th hole. The cart path on the 14^th hole is as sketchy as they come. It is a huge safety issue that has needed attention and we have chosen to try recycled tire crumb over a product called ecogrid. It will be an interesting trial to see how well this product holds up on a severely sloped cart path. We were successful in securing a grant from Alberta Recycling to cover most of the cost of the project, so if this product works well we will continue to replaces the back nine cart paths with it.

Looking up 14th cart path

I am hoping in my next blog post I will be able to discuss how we have started to improve playing conditions, but until we get our infrastructure operating efficiently, we will continue to put out fires and tread water.

If it wasn’t for our great turf care crew at Dino Trail, we would have not progressed as much as we have. I am fortunate to have people on the crew that genuinely want to make the course better and take pride in their tasks. I feel things are only going to get easier from this point on, coupled with a great team, I think we are going to make some great strides in the next few months.

   

May Update

Well I had planned to do a post every two weeks and I see it will be a month tommorow since my last blog post, so I guess I will start now.

Colin verticutting tees

A typical hole

The last three weeks have been pretty busy for the Dinosaur Trail Turf Care Team. We have been fairly successful in completing our cultural practices, as greens are on schedule for their bi-weekly verticut and topdress. Our first verticut proved to be very time consuming as this practice has not been used on the golf course, maybe ever. Tees and collars have also been verticut and are showing improvement everyday. Our fertility program is ramping up as we plan to fertilize tees, fairways, and rough this week. Our greens will also get there first dose of Propel from Floratine and continue with our foliar program.

Our main focus as a crew these past few weeks have been to assist Dan Funk from Aqua Lawn out of B.C in troubleshooting our irrigation wiring on the back nine of the golf course. I was aware we had problems, but not to the extent that we uncovered. Using the combination of his specialized tools and 35 years experience, Dan had our crew digging holes all over the place to expose wiring. I kept a tally and we were up to 30 holes dug over a five hole span. Many of them three to four feet deep down to the mainline.

I must send a big shout out to my small but ambitious crew, without them we would have never made as quick of progress as we did dealing with issues, and they were able to put the golf course back together, only two days after Dan had left. As well thanks to our Assistant Superintendent Andrew Smith for putting in some big days and helping Dan out while I had to go back to Manitoba for prior commitments, it makes my life much easier.
When we started we had over 150 heads than were no longer controlled automatically on the back nine, when we finished we were down to 6. I learned a tonne over the six days I had the chance to work with Dan, and seeing how he systematically approaches each problem will be something I will always remember.

Most of our issues were caused by three things: 

A splice on the common wire that literally fell apart when we exposed it

1. The quality of work and products used during initial installation
2. Damaged wires and incorrect splices from past irrigation repairs
3. A misunderstanding of irrigation wiring when trying to band-aid fix a wire problem

It was very impressive to see Dan work, as within our first hour we had located a cut in the common wire that had taken down the stations for the 13th green. I remember him saying ``dig here the break in the wire is three feet down``. I did what he said and he was bang on, he pretty much found the proverbial needle in a haystack.

A cut in the wire that send the common to ground

We found many issues that made Dan shake his head, and I believe that their probably isn`t anyone else out there than can troubleshoot irrigation wiring as efficiently as he can.

In the next few weeks we plan to map our irrigation system and continue focus on improving the golf course. We will be doing some drainage and sub-base work in preparation for renovating cart paths on some badly damaged areas. I also anticipate our new PLC for the pumphouse will arrive in the next two weeks so that we can regain the automatic control for our VFD`s. Currently I can only run the pumps in manual control which means I will literally be sleeping in the pumphouse the next few nights with these hot temperatures on the way. Once we get this irrigation system full automated, as it was intended to be, we will focus on cleaning up tee and green areas on the back nine and resodding weak areas on greens.

15 fairway

In the near future I plan to overseed our back nine fairways as they are decimated and taken over by dandelions. I plan to use a drought tolerant blend of bluegrasses and fescues to ensure that the turf can deal with the conditions present in the Canadian Badlands.

Overall I think we are making progress in reaching our goals, but it is a slow progress. The gains that we have made are a reflection of our crew and the true passion they have for the property. It is exciting for me to see that they are noticing the small changes in the course and feeling proud of their accomplishments.

Water

Making my way out of the river after setting up the intake and making sure the foot valve was closed before priming the pump

 

If there is one issue that most turfgrass managers have in common, it is dealing with an irrigation system. We have all came into work in the morning to find a new water hazard or a huge crater in the fairway. It is definitely a love hate relationship, as when they are functioning properly they give us very little grief, but when the system is down, frustration kicks in usually followed by a colourful vocabulary.

The irrigation system at Dinosaur Trail is a combination of valve in head and block systems, with Toro, Rainbird, and Hunter heads. We have Hunter and Rainbird satellites, with the front nine being controlled by Stratus. We have two pump houses, the original for the front nine which is a single speed vertical turbine that is only used for backup, and the newer pump house built in 1993. In this pump house we have two VFD vertical turbine pumps controlled by an obsolete pump control system installed by AES out of Lethbridge. I am currently in the process of getting this pump control system updated as if it goes down, AES has told me they cannot repair the system, only replace it, which from time of breakdown would take 2 to 3 weeks. I believe in being proactive rather reactive so this is something I want to see get done before the end of May.

VFD Pumps with header and valve setup

River Pump

Original Pump

  

The unique part of the system is that both the front and back nine have there own dedicated pump, but with a special header and valve system, if one pump goes down the other can run both the front and back. The reason for this is that the back nine system runs at a higher pressure than the front due to the elevation changes in the back. So my plan is to fire up the front nine this upcoming week, deal with all the issues there and then focus on the back, where I know I am going to have lots to deal with back there.

The water source for the golf course is the Red Deer River which is pumped via a centrifugal pump on a movable skid, powered by a three phase 30 horsepower electric motor. The water is then fed through a 4 inch line that flows into our settling ponds and then flows over weirs to the holding pond. Before I started filling the ponds I had two breaks to fix as I tested the line for ice and breaks with a 2 inch trash pump prior to hooking up our main river pump. I also have a smaller 15 hp river pump for backup in case something happens to my main pump.

Mother Nature has definitely taken the pressure off getting water on the course with this recent moisture. Being located in a desert climate, I need to have my irrigation system running and functioning optimally. I know there are going to be some long tough days ahead digging holes and fixing problems, but in the end it will all work out, its only grass!

Changes

Alot of action has been going on the last two weeks out on the course at Dinosaur Trail. The most noticeable being the implimentation of our tree management plan. Two weeks ago I walked the course and marked out trees and or limbs that I thought should be removed due to a few issues. These being playability, agronomic impact, and safety . When the front nine was built they decided to use the fast growing Northwest Poplar to line the course. A common problem that occurs is that a tree mangement plan is not implimented soon enough to deal with these problematic trees. Many of the trees on the front nine have exceeded their lifespan by over 10 years and their shallow roots cause issues on all playing surfaces. As well they have started to rot from the inside out and pose a safety issue as it is not uncommon to see massive limbs breaking off after only a moderate wind.

Video of the tree on #7 coming down

The Tree was 3'6" in diameter

With the help of an arbourist and a man lift we removed the 2nd largest tree on the property, and 70 to 80 limbs on other trees. I could have removed alot more, but I had to remember that we would be responsible for all cleanup as well. A huge thanks goes out to Lyle Anderson, for volunteering his time, labour, fuel, and trailer to remove all of the tree material from the golf course. Without him we would still be trying to cleanup the tree debris.

Lyle, Joel, and Dean cleaning up the trees

A crack in the tree very close to the base

Removing and old storage tank

As far as other changes at the course, I have started to clean up the shop yard, removing old broken down vehicles and storage tanks that were used in the past. We have added a sea- can for fertilizer storage and have put new tee markers into use on the back nine that utilize iron ore rock found on the course. Due to the minimal number (23) and smaller sized bunkers on the course I have switched to hand raking the bunkers instead of using a mechanical trap rake. Finally we will begin to impliment a foliar feeding program and the use of growth regulators, something that has not been used on the course in the past.

The addition of our sea-can

The fertilizer I inherited, most of it is 2 to 3 years old

New Back Nine tee markers

Hope everyone has a great Easter Sunday and I think we are in for a great finish at the Masters.