Several years ago I worked briefly for a company in West Australia that installed home irrigation systems. Their main focus was subsurface irrigation. One of their greatest marketing strategies revolved around the high iron content of the aquifers and how this combined with above ground systems has turned much of Perth buildings and concrete orange.
It was immediately clear to me its potential for use on golf courses and the benefits that could be achieved with it. Certainly there are also some negative aspects in its application for golf, but I cant help but feel that the positives outweigh them strongly. Also, with time and development, many of those possible downsides will be eliminated or worked around.
It is exciting to see a push towards fully utilising this technology as some have dabbled with mixed results. Here in NZ I know of one course with 9 fairways irrigated with SDI. They use recycled water and they experienced some problems because of this. At a high end resort, a trial was done with one tee having SDI installed also.
To add to the questions (Hopefully Don gets a chance to address some of them as this is a fascinating topic)
Is there any reduction in the impact of hydrophobic surfaces as the water doesn’t need to pass through the surface to reach its target?
How accurately can a system be calibrated for applying products via a fertigation unit? The ability to directly apply things like insecticides into the rootzone without having to wash them in or worry about spraying with people around would be great.