Roll with the Punches

 Aerification is difficult enough but when you add our wild Colorado spring weather is almost impossible.  No matter what plans you have in place they are no match against Mother Nature. We started aerification of the tees on Monday April 8th, the weather was good almost 70 degrees. What a difference 12 hours can make, late Monday the winds were howling and the snow was falling with a fifty degree negative swing. This morning  the low was three degrees wow, not the type of weather we would expect in April. Thanks to my hard working crew we successively finished all the tees on Monday, .  We will see what the next days bring and hopefully we can finish the fairways before the next snow storm?

"It's not how you handle things when they go right. It's how you handle them when they go wrong"
SJW

Stage 2 Drought

Denver water just issued a stage 2 drought for the spring/summer of 2013 starting April 1st.

With a dry spring and summer in 2012 and a below average snow pack in 2013 mandatory restrictions for watering have to be practiced!  We need to  protect our quality water for our health and safety.

Everyone should practice water conservation even if we are in not in a drought.
Below are some tips to help conserve our most valuable resource.  FYI we only water the golf course two times a week in the heat of the summer. If we can do that on the course homeowners and easily do that on their home lawns.

- Only water in the early morning or late evening.
- Install rain sensors so your irrigation system turns off when raining.
- Hand water dry spots of turf  instead of irrigating the entire lawn.
- Always use a spray nozzle on the end of your garden hose.
- Plant low water use plant material and grass species
- Use Organic based fertilizers
- Drip irrigation to landscape plants.
- Keep your lawn at a higher height of cut 3 inches.
- Check to see if your irrigation system is working properly.  ie leaks, sprinkler adjustment.
- Use low flow shower heads, toilets and faucets.
- Install low water energy efficient appliances.
- Turn off water when shaving, brushing teeth, washing hands.

All these little tips will help us conserve our water!



Denver Water Link Below

http://www.denverwater.org/SupplyPlanning/DroughtInformation/DroughtConditions/

Software Gremlin's

Everyone has software gremlins in their computer occasionally but when that software runs a large irrigation system even stranger things happen. On Sunday night around 7pm I received a strange call that the irrigation was running on #13 green? Even stranger this happened 12 hours after a large spring snow storm.  People were thinking what is going on?  

Well we had just started charging up our summer laterals earlier that week, so most holes were charged and operational.  Our irrigation clocks in the field have three different modes  OFF, CENTRAL and  STAND ALONE. In the off mode the power is on in the clock, but the software is in a sleep mode. In Central mode  the clock is  controlled by the computer and in Stand Alone mode the internal software runs  the clock. All 32 clocks were in off mode except three holes #13, #5, #7  they were in stand alone?  So in this mode the clocks  will run the last program that was downloaded, all the way back from our last irrigation cycle in November 2012. 

So at 7pm on Sunday evening the irrigation started on those holes that were in stand alone mode, thinking the central computer was down!  The Toro irrigation clocks in the field have a fail safe,  they will store the last program downloaded indefinitely in case your central computer goes down. With this fail safe you will still be able to water the golf course.  

After gathering all the data and information on Monday morning we figured that the all the clocks were in the OFF mode on Thursday evening, but some irrigation maintenance was done on  those three holes Friday morning,  and the clocks were not turned back to the off mode.  Lesson Learned! 

Thanks to everyone who noticed the water was on and recognized that is shouldn't of been!

Now that's how you winter water!

Perfect Timing

Today was the perfect time to apply our custom wildflower seed mix  with an approaching spring snow storm. Starting tonight we are expected 6-10 inches of heavy wet snow. The spring snow is not only good for the course and the farmers in the plains, its also a great time to apply wildflower seed.  There are still  cracks and fishers in the native soil from the freeze and thaw over the winter, creating a optimal seed bed for the wildflower seed. We are applying 125 pounds of seed on approximately 25 acres in select native locations.  Lets hope for a few more spring snow storms and warmer weather for germination of the seed. 

Jason on #11 valley 

Applying the seed 

GHIN

Tee markers are going out today, ready for handicap postings starting tomorrow!
Snow is melting extremely fast now and the course is drying out. With temperatures in the upper 60s and 70s the next few days we might be playing golf soon!

Big Time

With this most recent spring snowstorm we received some Monster drifts, Some over 3 feet tall! The moisture is great but it is going to be a while before the course will open!

Recycling

About six years ago we started our recycle program. The program started at our Golf Maintenance Facility in attempt better our environmental footprint. Our recycle program started as a small  pile of scrap metal that we brought to the recycle center yearly. Then grew to  recycle bins all over our building including recycling the waste from the courses trash cans. We now have multiple ways to recycle most of our waste in  small  and large containers. The amount of products that we can recycle are endless from magazines,  scrap metal, alkaline/rechargeable batteries, CFL bulbs/tubes and much more. 

Below are some links to better educate you on recycling and locations to drop off your waste.

Lets all do our part to help protect Mother Earth. 

Earth 911 is a search site to locate recycling centers in your area

www.earth911.com 

The Big Green Box is a company that specializes in recycling household  alkaline batteries, and electronics

www.biggreenbox.com

The Home Depot will recycle CFL bulbs and rechargeable batteries free of charge

http://ext.homedepot.com/community/blog/recycle-your-old-rechargeable-batteries-and-cellphones-at-the-home-depot/

Lowes will  recycle CFL bulbs, rechargeable batteries, and more free of charge

http://www.lowes.com/cd_Recycling_368967519_

Best Buy will recycle most electronics, rechargeable batteries, print cartridges and more for free

www.bestbuy.com/site/Global-Promotions/Recycling-Electronics/pcmcat149900050025.c?id=pcmcat149900050025

Batteries plus will recycle rechargeable batteries, CFL bulbs, CFL tubes and more

www.batteriesplus.com/t-batteries-plus-recycles.aspx

Waste Management  
http://www.recycleamerica.com/

Douglas County Household Hazardous waste recycle Program

http://search.earth911.com/program/Q1RQNVJZWldFXA/?what=Fluorescent+Tubes&where=Colorado&max_distance=100&country=US&province=CO&city=Denver&region=Adams&postal_code=80260&latitude=39.8672055261&longitude=-105.007121029&family_id=95&list_filter=programs

Drone Mapper

Last fall the Pinery had the opportunity  to lend our property for aerial imagery from a few local companies called Drone Mapper,  Compass Data INC and Falcon UAV. These companies work together and specialize in the generation of geo-reference points and digital elevations from aerial images taken from UAV's. They also operate a innovative software system that allows the UAV to upload their imagery through a web based interface. The data gathered is very detailed and  the software that runs the imagery is equally detailed.  The  images taken of the Pinery will help us map our irrigation system, measure distances and square footage's of specific areas. This data that was gathered is going to be very helpful information for future  Pinery projects. Thanks to Drone Mapper for letting us use the images and data for making our mapping project possible. 

The Pinery Country Club  

aerial images

Link to site www.dronemapper.com/node/119

Amiad Filter

Last week we did our annual inspection of our Amiad filter in our pump station.  This filter cleans the irrigation water with a 300 micron screen that is self cleaning with internal brushes. The filter runs several times during a irrigation cycle keeping  contaminates form entering the system.  Thankfully we only have to to inspect  this filter every 5 years because of the weight and size of the filter.  When we designed  the pump station we purposely  built 12 foot tall ceilings so we can remove the top of the filter and the internal screen, as you can see from the picture below the  filter is seven feet tall. To remove the top of the filter we added a small pulley to the ceiling and attached the top of the filter with steel cables and a come-along  so  we could lift off the top of the filter more easily. Our inspection of the filter and brushes was encouraging,   only a slight cleaning of both. After re-assembling  the filter  we charged the station back up to check for leaks, so far so good, no leeks and the filter is running properly.

Removing top and brushes with pulley system 

Internal Brushes

Internal stainless screen

Winter Maintenance

With the cold weather and snow  on the course  its back inside for our winter maintenance programs. These programs range from equipment preventative maintenance,  refurbishing amenities, building maintenance, Chemical,  fertilizer and parts inventory as well as many other small projects that have been but on the back-burner over the summer. This time is also use to plan out our 2013  fertilizer / IPM (integrated pest Management) programs as well as cultural program scheduling all while doing  research on new products and techniques. At any time you are welcome to come down to the shop and see our winter maintenance program. See ya in the spring!!

Grinding reels 

Chemical Inventory

Preventive Maintenance on IR mower 

Twitter Updates

Well I just added another tool to keep our members up to speed, Twitter. It is amazing how fast social media is growing. Some day letters in the mail will be a thing of history, not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
With this social media I will be able to give real time updates on course conditions, weather,  special projects.

Follow my Tweets on the right side of my blog or just follow my Tweets.
See ya on the course.

Pinery Twitter

Blow out

So far this years blow out has gone smoothly. Today we see the finish line after two long days of running around and making sure all the water is out of the lines. This year we had Jim Vosepka  feild service manager 

of the Rocky Mountain region from Toro and Travis Abitz golf irrigation sales Rocky Mountain region for Toro. To assist us in our blow our procedures. 

The main reason  the representative from Toro are on property  are to  help with  our blow out and see why we are blowing are 780 series heads tops,  especially  during blow out and  spring charge up. When the representative arrived on Monday we walked them through our entire blow our procedure. Both reps were pleased with our plan and the way we execute it. On the end of the second day we were finished with the entire course and Jim and Travis were both impressed with how we handle blow out, we are  the poster child for golf course blow out. So we will see them in the spring for charge up and hopefully we can figure out the problem with the 780 heads.

Blowing out the lower end of the course 

Blowing out entire 27 hole system with 750 CFM compressor at 35-40 PSI

Videos

Check out Pinery's Golf Course Maintenance YouTube channel on the right side of
this blog. We have had the channel for some time but  thought it would be nice to have them all

in one place. We will post more videos as they are taken. Enjoy! 

Soak it down

Over the next few days the golf course will be a little wet!  With blow out of the irrigation system occurring on the 12th of November,  we will not have access to large amounts of water for the course until March 2013 so let it fly. We want to load up the soil profile and southern exposures as best as we can this week.  Only time will tell as the winter months set in if we will have to charge up our frost free system for  winter watering. Not many folks know that watering in winter is just as important as in the summer. Desiccation over the winter especially on southern exposures is extremely hard on turf. We have to do our best to hydrate the crown of the turf plant throughout the winter by irrigation water or snow.  Some of the driest places on earth are the north and south poles where they receive only a trace of precipitation a year!  Most the snow and ice is millions of years old and since it  is all frozen  its not available to plants or animals.

Look at all that water! 

If the polar caps were to melt, which hold over 70% of earths fresh water, 

our oceans would rise global  over 200 Feet!

Good thing we live in the Mile High city.

The Home stretch

Only one week until irrigation blowout.  These last few watering's we do during the day because of the cold nights so we will take advantage and check the pumps and pressures at the station and in the field. We do these testings 2-3 times per year to make sure the entire irrigation system is performing the way it was designed. 

Here is a short video of the pump station in action.