[Joe Hancock]

I schedule my water so that greens and tees are closest to the early morning hours. I don't want heavy dew sitting on them all night, and the reason is to diminish disease opportunity.

Having said that, and assuming that a normal irrigation event takes places during the night, there are times when irrigation runs during the day. For example, we have had a lot of sun, wind and high temps this year. I have gone out during mid-afternoon a few times to run a short cycle on the greens just to cool them off.

Joe

[Ray Richard]

  I always tried to program my irrigation cycle based on when the morning mowing will begin, minus 1 hour to let the turf dry out. The greens got irrigated at 2-4 in the AM to insure that the early morning golfers didn't have soggy greens. My system was new but limited, so the irrigation cycle would usually start as the sun was setting, which caused a few desease problems in very hot/humid weather.
  The systemization worked fine until I was called by a member one afternoon in late July. The mens league had decided to play a "Night Golf Tournament", using luminescent  golf balls and flag poles with lumination sticks attached. I was asked to "shut off the sprinklers". I had a pretty lively discussion with the GM, and they ended up playing a dark, dangerous (a few member tumbled into bunkers) and very moist round of golf.

[Jerry Kluger]

I was told that watering after dark with temps at 70 or above is not advisable - any thoughts?

[Craig Sweet]

Jerry, that isn't a problem here in the arid west.  We have rising humidity at night, but it ins't a big deal everything...air and land quickly dry out in the morning.

One problem we have is our system has a variety of pipe size...everything is based on flow...so...we really can't set it up to begin watering on #1 and then #2 etc....we could but it might take way into the morning to complete irrigation...we can imput run times for each head and prioritize greens or tee's or fairways, etc...but the system is going to optimize where the water is going and when...until everything is watered...and then we have the time limits impossed by play...

Jerry....if you don't water in the evening or the early morning, when do you water so as not to have golfers dodging water?

[Craig Sweet]

Ray...our course is right across the street from the local country club...one evening we mowed fairways until dark and were wrapping it up back at the maintinence building when we heard laughter and voices coming from the country club...so we checked it out and found some people golfing...this didn't seem kosher at all....suddenly the irrigation came on and these poeple got pretty wet...in the meantime we called the CC super and told him he might have some vandals on the course...turns out it was a night game with illuminated balls and NO ONE told the super about it...thus the irrigation was never turned off....and the super was pissed....

Why can't the GM communicate these things to everyone?

[Don_Mahaffey]

Craig,
To be clear, I'm not saying I finished watering the early holes, I'm just saying you can tell the computer where to start the ramp up. Flow will always dictate how much water is pumped. The most efficient way to water is with the pumps full bore for the shortest period, but with older systems and undersized pipe that is not usually possible. You almost always have sort of a bell curve of flow. But, you can choose where to start and where to finish. So for an hour in the evening and an hour in the morning my system would only be running at about 1/3 of the pumps capacity. Thus, I used the start up on the early holes and the ramp down on the finishing holes. I only needed to do this for about 6 weeks a year, which just happened to coincide with our highest revenue periods.

[Jerry Kluger]

Criag: We teed off today at 8:30 and we dodged sprinklers most of the round.  Hot and dry here today and super is concerned about overnight watering and disease.  I don't pretend to be an expert and by no means am I going to question his decisions - I am just curious and wonder if he is being overly cautious.  

[Craig Sweet]

Don...so you want to avoid or minimize spikes in the flow? Tough on pipe and pumps?

Our mains range from 2 1/2" to 6" or 8"...and the system being old, and somewhat cobbled togther in places, it's a challenge to be efficent....it's fascinating, but you can reduce the run time on a head by say 2 minutes and add 1/2 hour to the overall run time of the system...or in some cases vis-versa....depending on pipe size etc....

[Don_Mahaffey]

Craig,
I hear you.
Yes, I'd try and minimize spikes. Very tough to do on an old golf course with old, undersized pipe. I'm not telling you what to do, nor do I claim to understand your situation. Just sharing what I did when facing the long day, short night deal...with a outdated system.

[Craig Sweet]

Don...I appreciate any and all insights...especially yours.  I'm pestering my super to teach me more and more about this system we have...after all, I spent most of my spring digging it up and repairing it  

I figure the more I learn the better....my next move might be as a super at a nine hole course and this is stuff I need to know....now, if I could get them to teach me how to grind reels and bed knifes.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Just being a player and not understanding all the ins and outs of watering and irrigation, I have found this a fun discussion to ease drop on. thanks

[Ray Richard]

Jerry-On 70 degree temps and night watering-My experience is in the Northeast. You really need to be careful when it gets this hot at night, with fungicide applications up to date, a check on the humidity and wind and keep a close watch on the amount of water that was used by the turf that day. When it gets real humid, with the wind light, you can limit the amount of water you apply, or irrigate every other night (keeping a close watch out for wilting turf on the offnight-following day). Its a constant watch of evapotranspiration rate (the amount of water used by the turf during the day-the word is a combination of evaporation and transpiration-a.k.a. plant water usage). Needless to say,its a time of high stress for golf superintendents in the Northeast.

This brings up the issue of hand watering, a seasoned superintendent told me once "you have to watch that hand watering, its like an addictive drug for the turf, Once the grass gets used to it they will want it every day". I used hand watering only in an emergency.

You don't need to push water every night in the summer, you actually may use more water during the early spring, with low humidity and brisk winds drying the course out quickly.

Craig-You could spend a hundred hours taking about GM and Super communications-I always took an aggresive approach to communications-I would talk to my boss 2-3 times a day and ask if anything was planned. These guys get information overload too. If something bad happened than I tried to be visible, hiding out only complicated the problem. I tried to talk to key members and listen to their complaints. And I still got burned on occasion.

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