WINSTONgolf is a 45-hole golf facility, which includes the WINSTONopen course with its bentgrass/poa greens and the WINSTONlinks course with fescue greens.
In 2018, the team around Course Manager Jordan Tschimperle planned the wetting agent applications, as well as the test series with the POGO Pro System.
2018 was an exceptional year for WINSTONgolf in a variety of aspects, with 50% of rainfall coming during the non-growing period and the total of precipitation lower than 1/3 of the average rainfall. Last, but not least, with snow until mid-April, nearly instantly followed by an extremely hot and dry summer, the turfgrass had very little time to adjust and a harder time to survive.
In this situation they faced many challenges, such as ensuring consistent surfaces, optimal aesthetics, and quality greens conditions with limited water usage, while also trying to prevent LDS (Localised Dry Spot).
To reach these goals, they decided to use the POGO Pro moisture sensor system to monitor certain aspects of their Greens, (in this case, temperature and moisture) in combination with the use of the TourTurf® ELL Respond® Extreme Long Lasting Wetting Agent.
The first objective with the POGO was to maintain the greens at a consistent moisture between 10-13% on the OPENcourse and between 12-18% on the LINKScourse. Due to the extremely hot temperatures (over 35 degrees Celsius), the evaporation was around 10% per day. To ensure optimal green health, they needed to target 20 to 23% moisture on the OPEN and 22 to 28% on the LINKS after the hand watering.
The second objective with the POGO was to identify the dry patch before the first visual signs (wilting, brown area, inconsistent playing conditions) appeared.
By using the POGO daily, they tracked the evolution of the LDS. They were looking for three criteria: is the dry patch getting bigger, dryer, or better?
The POGO is a great tool for the diagnosis, but their goals wouldn’t have been achieved without the use of TourTurf® ELL Respond® Extreme Long Lasting.
The choice for using TourTurf® ELL Respond® Extreme Long Lasting was motivated by its moisture-holding capacity at a deeper level. One major benefit is that the moisture is not just retained, but the combination with the penetrant helps to ensure that the moisture doesn’t get held up on the surface, but penetrates the entire root zone.
The TourTurf® ELL Respond® Extreme Long Lasting has helped to more efficiently manage the Greenkeeping team. With a limited number of staff, it would have been impossible to hand water all 45 holes (50 Greens) every day. The long-lasting holding capacity gave them the ability to focus on fewer greens per day while knowing that the other greens were still holding enough moisture from the previous day. Reducing the workload and stress for both greenkeepers and managers.
On the other hand, they weren’t just dealing with limited manpower; they had to face a very alarming situation as the water storage was becoming very limited, and every drop of water had to be used as efficiently as possible. The long-lasting holding capability of the product was a huge key to reducing the water consumption.
In the 24 hours following the application, they also noticed a very fast and uniform rewetting of the surfaces (especially dry patch) and a consistent increase in moisture content. The TourTurf® ELL Respond® Extreme Long Lasting has shown to have many advantages, especially in its uniform coverage, ease of use, and great precision.
The combination of the POGO pro and the TourTurf® ELL Respond® Extreme Long Lasting was a major component for better management of their greens and their water usage during the 2018 drought period.
Image credits: Stefan von Stengel