Summer Course Report
As I am writing this report, the drought has finally broken with significant rainfall across the state. Mona Vale has received 48 mm since 9am this morning and more is forecast. The dam and creeks are filling. We should have enough water for the remainder of summer, if the forecasted rain continues. We have allowed the course to flood by keeping the outlet on Mona Vale beach closed. This should direct the water from the 5th and 7th fairways to fill the ponds on the 7th, 3rd and 11th. This could have a small impact on the course conditions tomorrow, however, if this means we have secured water for the remainder of summer, it’s a small price to pay.
This summer has been extremely tough with water management being very important. Since mid-October we have only received 46mm over the last 96 days. (Until yesterday) This is down on average nearly 200mm of rainfall for this period traditionally. With this lack of rain, a lot of the dams are nearly dry and the main irrigation dam is down to around 4 Mega litres of water left. We use on average in summer around 2-2.5 mega litres a week. Without the bore we would have already run out of water and would be buying in town water at a big cost. In the summer of 2017/2018 we installed a town water line to the main dam in case the bore runs out of water we would be able to turn on the town water line, although just to keep the greens alive would cost the club around $1500/week.
I have reduced watering tees to just once a week instead of 2-3 times a week, saving 300,000 litres a week, I have reduced watering fairways from twice a week to only watering dry spots every 10 days. This is saving around 1.2 million litres a week. Greens are being watered as normal. The dry patches in the fairways will recover after some decent rainfall. I am trying to use exactly what the bore pumps into the dam to ensure the level of the main dam stays as it is and doesn’t drop any further. The bore pumps in 1.6 million litres a week, and we use just short of a million litres a week to water greens. This leaves me with around 600,000 litres of water a week to play with over tees and fairways, not nearly enough but I feel we are doing a good job of managing it thus far and our course is still one of the greenest golf courses in Sydney.
The only issue we have with the bore is the quality of the water, when it is mixed with consistent storm water run-off it is perfectly fine to use to irrigate greens and on average is around 40-60 PPM of sodium (an ideal range is under 50 PPM of sodium, but this is manageable). Currently with the lack of rain the quality of water is extremely poor and the latest water test came back with over 300 PPM of sodium which is 6 times the threshold fine turf surfaces should be watered with. Some of the greens are now starting to struggle as a result of this being the only water they have been getting for months now.
High sodium in the soil cause the soil structure to break down, this then makes it hard for water and air to penetrate the soil profile and causes the roots of the plant to rot. It also brings with it a common fungi disease called Pythium. This disease can very quickly kill an entire green, it is also very hard to control. We have increase out spiking program on greens to keep getting as much air into the soil profile as possible, we have been managing out watering procedures to minimise the amount of poor water that goes onto the weak areas, we have increase our calcium applications (calcium off sets sodium and improve soil structure), and have been spraying more fungicides then normal to try and contain this disease.
I have made the decision to do a mini renovation on the greens, this coming Monday and Tuesday. I will extract a small core 1/3 of the size, I would during our major greens renovations to keep relieve compact, and improve air and water movement in the soil profile. I will heavily top dress the greens after to fill the holes with fresh sand which will help with soil drainage, this will be followed by another fungicide and calcium application. For around 7-10 days the greens may be a little bumpy but this should improve green health coming into the back end of a tough summer. There are a few greens namely 1st, 2nd, 7th, 11th, putting and chipping greens that are the worst affected. These greens may need additional coring prior to the full greens renovation in March.
Thank you for your understanding.
Sam Neylon
Course Superintendent
