The precipitation was welcomed with open arms on Friday. The golf course was really drying out and it was difficult to irrigate adequately each night. Each night there has been close to 440,000 gallons of water applied. I have also been running our well for a period of 12 straight days, at a rate of 426,000 gallons per day, to keep our irrigation pond at a high level.
The Iowa DNR controls all irrigation practices on golf courses. Our permit allows me to irrigate 126.5 acre feet of water from the month of April through October. I am also allowed to pump 81 acre feet of water from our well during the same time period.
An acre foot of water equals 326,000 gallons of water. The DNR permit well total equates to basically 62 days to run the well and 94 days to irrigate at the 440,000 total. So, as you can see the irrigation planning is very critical when it comes to maintaining the course and complying with our permit. Fortunately the system was hardly used prior to the month of June.
Outside of our normal maintenance practices, there have been several pine trees removed from the course. There are still several other trees we will remove as time allows. The pine tree population has really taken a hit the past five years. We have removed about 12+ pine trees each year.
These trees were not native to our area and that creates a level of stress to begin with. As they age 30-40 years, they are even more susceptible to disease and insect pressure. The majority of these trees are succumbing to pine needle wilt. There is no cure other than the chainsaw and a few man hours.
The private tile work has been completed at Stoney Brook and I can already see a difference in the area. Between our work and the private repairs, the area has dried amazingly well with little sign of standing water. We will till the repair areas, next month, and follow with a seeding to complete the process.
They have completed the retention area to the east of number twelve. The next step will be for golf course staff to construct the berms on five and eleven fairways. I hope to start on these over the next two weeks. This will be followed by reconstruction of the pond outlet in late fall with the addition of some new tile.
The material spread on the south end of the golf course has been leveled and covered with topsoil. It is a very heavy soil that will be seeded with a native grass seed much the same as the previous grass type.
I am also working on establishing new shelter plans on the SE corner of the golf course. We are going to use the existing trusses on the new unit. The plan is to build an outdoor bar, on the shelter, to use during golf events. It will also be constructed with normal size doorways so golf carts can no longer be driven through. I will keep you posted as we get closer to construction.
Quite a bit of our equipment has been in the shop with minor repair work necessary. It is time consuming since I am the mechanic, along with many other titles. I have been spending a lot of time keeping everything operable with some help from the street division mechanics.
I replaced the electric clutch for the pump in our sprayer this past week. I have sprayed greens twice this week, and will start spraying the remainder of the clover this coming week.
That should cover the past two week period at the golf course. Please contact me with any comments, questions, or concerns so they can be addressed in a timely manner. Let’s all pray for a safe and smooth 24 hour period of RAGBRAI.
The staff has been working very hard to keep everything in nice shape.
Spencer Municipal Golf Course 