It has been widely reported that it is predicted by 2007, there will be a water crisis in the Klang Valley. All of us (regular golfers, at least,) would have seen a golf course irrigation system in operation at one time or another. Some of us may even have been the lucky few to have seen too close and gotten wet.

The questions posed are: Why do we water? How is it that turf that grows in the wild without an irrigation system survived anyway? When, how often and how much do we water? What kind of water do we use? Why do we still bother to water after last night’s downpour?

For starters, we water because one of the goals of good turfgrass management is to produce turf that grows at a STEADY RATE at all times, not in spurts and starts. Although Malaysia is blessed with high rainfall, this does not come at regular intervals or steady amounts. Therefore, irrigation becomes necessary. Turfgrass is not one of those plants that can store water. 

Some types of turfgrasses can survive even extended dry periods but it would not be green or even growing. It may suffer root and leaf death, though the crown tissues live on and will resume growth when moisture returns. That explains why once in a while during dry periods you see grass on some fairways sometimes turning brown, and you thought it was dead but after a few days of rain, it turns green again. 

There are limits, of course, to how long without water the crown would survive.  Though fortunately, it is longer for Zoysia than for say, Cowgrass. The crown may survive longer, but that does not mean it does not wilt just like any other grasses. When the weather is dry and hot; and the wind is blowing strong, what happens is water is evaporated and transpired from the leaves of the plant. The trick is to catch it before it goes beyond a point of no return. Do it correctly, and your grass will grow healthy strong roots.  Water too frequently and your grass will turn lazy and grow shallow roots.  Hey, why work hard to look for water when you get it at the same time every day without fail?

In big and modern golf courses overseas, they will have computerized weather stations that measure all these factors and calculate the evapotranspiration rate and determines when the next irrigation event should be.

But here in good old Kota Permai, we use a more sophisticated and complicated technology of determining our own irrigation event timing.  It is called; wait for it; “footprintingalogy”. Ok, so I added the ‘logy’ part, but I did say technology right? You see, plants contain as much water as humans do, up to 70%.  So when plant cells start losing their water content, the leaves aren’t as puffy.  So when you step on it, the grass doesn’t come back to its original state quite as fast, or maybe not at all.  Looking back behind you (not that many golfers do) you will see your footprints in the grass.  If this was our irrigation crew, this would mean a mad dash to the irrigation controller and pushing some buttons. 

So if you wonder why sometimes the sprinklers suddenly turn on right in front of you, just picture a staff member, his heart beating hard, trying to save the grass from wilting and trying hard to remember the ‘address’ of the sprinklers that needs to be turned on. 

To show how clever we Turf Managers are there is yet another way to determine when and how much water to dispense known as “The Optimum Irrigation Event”. This entails a long list of calculations based on accepted irrigations management principles and formulas. No, I won’t put it here, you wouldn’t understand it.  Pay attention now, we don’t call it ‘watering’; we call it ‘irrigation’.  In fact, it’s such a big thing for us; we call it an ‘event’.  Ahem, at work, we don’t even call it ‘rain’ anymore; instead we call it ‘precipitation’ even if it means more saliva coming out when we pronounce it. 

How much water does a grass need?  It depends on a lot of things; how low is it cut? How much traffic goes over it?  What is it planted on, clay or sand? Is it in a flat area, slope or even a depression? What kind of grass is it?  Hence the formulas and calculations I was mentioning in the previous paragraph.

Next question; why is it, when last night got heavy rain, you people still watering?  Well for one thing, it may be raining cats and dogs at your place but not a drop here.  Or we may be watering in chemicals or fertilizers.  Or in dry weather, when there is rain, I set a limit of 10mm.  If rain does not reach the 10mm limit, our staff will go on with the ‘irrigation event’ anyway.  We have a rain-gauge at our humble workshop.

We start our irrigation event after the golfers have left.  We start from the starting holes (1 and 10) and we start with the fairways.  We will end with the greens. 

Of course, all this sounds so complicated when all you do is ask your maid to shower the grass twice a day every day, but hey, who said maintaining a golf course was easy?