Irrigation Update.

To say the irrigation system has taken up a lot of my time this past month would be an understatement. We last experienced rain on April 28 (12mm or 1/2"). Couple this with warm winds and it's no wonder the knolls and non-irrigated areas are dry and hard. The course and Lakeland County for that matter are in desperate need of precipitation. It's hard to believe but some courses in the Calgary area have experienced major floods and a few of the mountain courses have seen almost 12" of snow. Edmonton has also seen enough rain and are anticipating drier conditions. Apart from the greens, it's tough even keeping the fairways and rough green and lush. The one positive is 10 to 15 yard increases in driving yardage.

On May 12 my irrigation start up procedure involved priming the mainline. Within 5 minutes I had a break on the side of #7 fairway. Not exactly the start I was looking for. So I fired up the tractor and back hoe and began to dig and repair. The break was an easy one to fix and within 3 hours I was ready to continue priming the mainline. Slowly pressuring the system and rechecking my repair, I have another break about 15 feet back of my original repair. So a few curse words later and extension of the trench, I replaced 20 feet of irrigation pipe. Now I'm good to go and none too soon because the course at this time needs water pretty bad.

Once my mainline is primed, I like to prime each fairway individually. This is done through isolation valves located at the tee and green. At the far end of the fairway or green, I'll use a quick coupler key to vent the water which originates at the tee. This greatly eliminates water hammer which is the number one cause of irrigation breaks particularly at start up. The other benefit to priming the fairways this way is that I'm able to flush the lines of potential debris. It's amazing the sorts of debris that may accumulate in the lines. (Pebbles, gravel, metal flakes from the pumps, weeds and even small fish)

So after a 16 hour day, the irrigation system is finally primed and ready to go. I set up the satellite clocks to water tees and greens that night and hope come morning I have no issues. It rarely turns out that I have no issues unfortunately. One of my biggest problems is heads not completely turning off after their cycle (leaking) and/or heads not turning due to plugged drive nozzles. Our irrigation heads are Rainbird 51DR and 91DR which are impact heads. They are loud and best suited to handle brackish water which makes up the bulk of our irrigation pond. These heads are no longer made by Rainbird and over the years I've been replacing them with 900 series rotary heads. These heads are quieter and so far maintenance free considering our water source.

#7 Mainline Break (May 12, 2011)

#7 Mainline Break on 4" Pipe (May 12, 2011)

Cut Out Section of Mainline (May 12, 2011)

#7 Mainline Repair (May 12, 2011)

In the coming weeks, I hope to preform an irrigation audit to  make sure all heads are working properly. In the past 3 weeks, I have replaced 13 heads, 2 isolation valves and have added 4 new quick couplers at greens. In the near future, I'm planning on hand watering greens more often. This will minimize strain on the irrigation pumps and allow better water metering on the greens. The next spell of rain we get, I'll shut down the system and repair another 5 isolation valves and replace approximately 6 more heads.