What's In Your Water?

We have some good news and bad news with regards to our irrigation water issues. The good news is that with the water level dropped to improve our drainage this time of year, we were able to effectively inspect the rocks on the pond banks for bryozoans and we found no visible evidence of any bryozoan infestation. This is VERY good news! The bad news is that our most recent water sampling tests show that the quality of our irrigation water is not good at all. In fact, if we were to use the water in our irrigation pond to water turf, we would very likely do more harm than good. That being said we are looking into some water filtration and/or treatment options to be able to use the water again. 

Here is a photo of the recent samples taken from both our city water source and our irrigation pond water:

By simply viewing these samples, it is no surprise that the quality of city water source is far superior to our irrigation pond water.

The most alarming concerns about the quality of our irrigation water are the extremely high magnesium, sodium, bicarbonate and chloride levels, but high nitrate and phosphate levels are also cause for concern as they too are listed as “problematic” in the report. We suspect that subsurface contamination from beneath the pond floor via “boils” is the cause of the water quality problem, but we can’t be certain at this time.

Here is how the irrigation pond water compares to our city water source:

	IRRIGATION POND	CITY SOURCE
Magnesium (ppm)	32.85	0.73
Sodium (ppm)	257.9	6.09
Bicarbonate (ppm)	163.48	12.2
Chloride (ppm)	377.7	6.21
Nitrate (ppm)	2.67	1.51
Phosphate (ppm)	2.24	0.01

Magnesium: Excessive levels of magnesium are limiting the uptake of Fe, Ca and K – all essential nutrients for proper plant growth and health.
Sodium: High sodium levels have a severe impact on plant health. High sodium levels affect turf by increasing osmotic pressure of the soil solution, thus making water less available to the plants. Where sodium levels are very high, grass roots wilt and plants may eventually die. Nutritional imbalances and mineral toxicities may also occur at high sodium levels.
Bicarbonate: Excessive bicarbonate levels will contribute to the tie up of essential nutrients such as Ca, Mg, Fe, Cu and Zn – especially during periods of drought.
Chloride: High chloride levels interfere with proper plant function. Desiccation and “sealing off” are to be expected during periods of high heat or drought.
Nitrate: When nitrate levels are excessive, the plant is forced to store excess NO3 in vacuoles causing weak cell walls and unhealthy growth.
Phosphate: High phosphate levels interfere with the uptake of Mg, Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn. Problems with maintaining adequate colour may result.

Why is this important when we have the ability to water directly from the city source? The main reason is that our overnight watering window is greatly reduced when relying solely on the volume of the city source. The city source effectively provides us with about 600gpm vs 1800gpm when irrigating via our pump station and irrigation pond. In other words, it takes us three times as long to water overnight when pumping at 600gpm vs 1800gpm. This shorter watering window does not allow our irrigation cycles to effectively “soak in” before the crew arrives to begin the routine maintenance and it also results in “softer” playing conditions during the day for the golfers. In fact, we are often forced to run our nighttime cycles well into the morning and then have to adjust our maintenance accordingly to avoid the sprinklers that are still running.

Addressing some greens drainage concerns...

I just wanted to make you aware of some work we did this afternoon on the front 3rd of #15 green. It’s no secret that the front of the green suffers from very poor drainage. This is largely in part due to the “sand-dam” at the front edge where the green transitions to the approach. We are not adequately staffed at this time to renovate to remove the sand-dam so we spent a little under 2 hours completing a deep-tining and heavy topdressing on it to alleviate some of the drainage concerns. We are confident that the green will heal up quickly and perform much better throughout the winter months. Please understand though that this is a temporary fix and that an extensive renovation to remove the sand-dam and install new drainage is the ultimate solution.

The process completed this afternoon was as follows:

1. Topdress heavily with Greens Grade Profile (crushed ceramic soil amendment) – this is the same soil amendment that was used for the Drill & Fill demo on the lower putting green back in June. As you can see below from this photo taken from that putting green last week, this amendment is permanent and creates ideal channels for water to infiltrate and drain:

2.  Deep-tine aerate behind the topdressing (solid tines approximately 8” deep).

3.  Brush soil amendment into open holes to fill them to the surface.

Here are some photos of this process:

 

We will be completing this same procedure on other “problem areas” on our greens in the coming weeks as time permits.