This is one for the books, but I placed a chart into the irrigations systems pressure chart recorder. March 29th! The earliest irrigation fill, air purge, test, repair that I can remember. (It is the earliest I can recall the ice on the pond vacant.)
I’m always concerned about filling then pressurizing plastic piping surrounded by frozen soils. The irrigation was slowly filled on Monday and pressure was limited to the point that elevated heads could be turned on to remove air from the system. Filling the system with our smallest pump takes several hours. In this day and age of cell phones It never ceases to amaze me that golfers call and complain about water running, puddles and SOMEONE should do something about it right away, but I did appreciate the call that informed me of a massive spiral cracking of pipe on the third green at TC.
Today when you figured that all frost would be gone we found several heads along the shaded tree lined fairways and greens on #11 & #16 that would not actuate (turn on) as they were frozen. How do I know they’re frozen you ask? They look like the pond fountain until they thaw to the point that they pop out of the ground or they don’t turn on at all. It is at that time you “back off” for fear of breakage. I did manage to break and launch one destroyed frozen sprinkler head on #17,
Due to the windy warm extremely dry weather, I will be watering the course to avoid anymore wind burned turf as we experienced last spring under similar circumstances. Ah, the rights of Spring!
