Message Board - Bowls: LDS?
19 Jul 2010 by colin@colchris.plus.com
As a greenkeeper I'm inclined to believe that the brown patches shown here are Localised Dry Spot, however as I've never experienced it before and to calm my bowlers down I've agreed to seek further advice.
My green has 4 pop-up sprinklers which, during this year's prolonged drought here in East Anglia, I've had running early mornings and late evenings for about a month. Each pop-up irrigates for about 12 minutes on each cycle. I've also been applying a wetting agent on a monthly basis since May.
These brown patches have appeared directly in front of 2 (but not the remaining 2) out of the 4 pop-ups, about 6m in from the edge of the green, in a roughly triangular shape.
It could be that there is a 'blind spot' on these two sprinklers where coverage is not as even in the area ahead of the pop-ups as for the rest of the irrigation arc, although there is a significant overlap in the spray pattern.
Any ideas please and, if LDS is thought to be the culprit, reasons why the wetting agent is ineffective?
Cheers.
19 Jul 2010 by volvo
Where E/Anglia. could be blind spot what coulor nossles are in others? are all springklers same nossles. If others are ok need to the 'problem' one. What make are pop ups
20 Jul 2010 by Vic Demain
Colin, have you been able to hand water these areas? We had a similar problem in front of our pop ups and were told they were wrong for bowls. Certainly looks difficult to control the woods.
20 Jul 2010 by Grassman2011
Funny that. A green i look after has had there pop ups checked, guess what, two of the four nozzles are wrong type.
20 Jul 2010 by Mal
We have this too! We run toro heads in the centre of each side and Hunter heads in the corners and it is directly in front of the Toro heads. on each side of the green. The corners are perfect. I was told by a engineer that it is a fault with the nozzles not matching the pressure that the system is set to run at.
Geography is everywhere
20 Jul 2010 by has 2 mow
You could always pull a plug from the effected areas, then take a clean bowl of water and either use a spoon or your fingers to allow small water droplets to form on the plug, if they sit on the surface of the plug for some time then LDS could be the problem.
Next time you run the sprinklers, you could put a few containers down, put some where it is green and some where it is not, and see if there is any difference ( cups from the clubhouse may help ), as Vic has pointed out, some hand watering would help and then see if the area greens up.
21 Jul 2010 by Philmort
The green that Gordon mentions had the same looking brown patches a week ago in spite of regular watering but since we've had some rain - guess what? Yep. they're turning green.
Proud to serve grassroots cricket
21 Jul 2010 by colin@colchris.plus.com
Thanks for your input folks.
We've had the same nozzles since the system was installed yonks ago, so nothing wrong with the original specification. Do you reckon it would be possible to do a pressure check on the 2 offenders?
We've now had a little rain (though nowhere near enough) and they show signs of greening through.
21 Jul 2010 by Mal
If you have had the same nozzles since yonks ago then these do supprisingly enough wear and should be replaced periodically
Geography is everywhere
22 Jul 2010 by Barry Pace
It definately sounds like uneven coverage by the sprinklers to me, the near perfect triangle of dry just being down to poor throw.
As stated do a coverage check with cups, should be similar amount in all, check and change nozzles and see if this improves it. Have you tried cleaning out the sprinklers, depends on what sort of course but some have a little trash screen in the bottom, grit and bits can clog this, especially if there have been repairs done on the pipework at some time.
Irrigation systems are no different to your mower and they need servicing, if you do not have this done then consider it soon, if you do then get another firm in, pronto, cos that really should have been picked up by someone at spring commission IMHO, unless it has only started recently of course....
Plastic.... it's The End I tell you... THE END!!!!
13 Aug 2010 by John White
As suggested by 'has 2 mow' put some containers down, I use pint glasses so its easy to see how much is in them and compair them. If you put them across the green and put the sprinklers on for the usual time it will show if the sprinkers are doing an effective job.
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