Spring is in full swing

Well, hopefully everyone had a chance to read my previous posting from the USGA on The Pros and Cons of A Mild Winter.  I think if you go look at the golf course right now you'll see exactly what the USGA is talking about.  Last week my irrigation water consumption almost doubled from the previous week's usage, 3.02 million compared to 1.8 million.  The warmer temps in the afternoon are starting to show us where the turf is a little weaker.  The good news is that right now the City of Naples has all the water we want, but more is not necessarily better.

To make sure we are using the water as efficiently as we can, I use water conditioning products called surfactants.  Surfactants are fancy molecules that allow water to do different things, an old Superintendent saying is "Surfactants make water wetter."  The boiled down reality is that most surfactants work on breaking down the cohesive properties of water, or the properties that make it puddle like in the picture.

When a soil gets completely dried out, it will actually repel water.  In order to re-wet a soil, massive amounts of water are required to actually drive the water into the ground.  Since golf is not a water sport, applying enough water to re-wet the sand in the picture above would make playing conditions completely horrible.  Yet, by simply adding a very specific molecule to the soil (the surfactant) which breaks down the surface tension of the water droplets, the water is able to penetrate the completely dried sand and re-wet it.

Watch this short video on the power of surfactants to re-wet completely dried out surfaces.


As you can see in the video, the surfactant allowed the water to immediately penetrate the soil.  Having the water immediately go into the soil is important as it reduces the amount of water needed.  Nobody like playing a golf course where the ball plugs in the fairway and has no roll.  The surfactants influence on the water helps us maintain a firmer surface which make for a better playing surface.  The surfactant also cuts down on the amount of localized dry spots on the course.

Since we are heading into the hardest time of the year for watering the golf course, I wanted to let everyone know that water application efficiency is always of the highest priority.  I use surfactants all the time depending on the course's needs.  The goal of my surfactant program is to try and unify moisture content throughout the soil profile.  The products I use are great at re-wetting dry areas, as well as allowing excess water to move on down through the soil profile so wetter areas dry out a little bit.  It's a delicate balancing act to have enough water moisture content in the soil so the plant stays healthy, but not too much which cause playing conditions do not deteriorate.  Surfactants help me to balance the grass's needs while maximizing playability.