With an average rainfall of 12 inches per year, one might say that necessity is the mother of invention — or at least innovation — when it comes to turfgrass irrigation in Boise, Idaho. The park and recreation department has been progressive with water conservation in the past 20 years, and its broad use of related technologies, plants and equipment has yielded results, including a 20 percent reduction in water use between 2009 and 2011.

“It’s a different game for us in the West,” says Park Superintendent Tom Governale. “Water conservation is water conservation.…there are good practices [everyone should follow]. But in this part of the world, we have to be more aggressive.”

Using Technology
When speaking of computerized systems, Governale notes his department’s success over the years with weather-station-based irrigation controls, which have decreased water use across Boise’s 1,000 acres of turf by gauging weather conditions, or “evapotranspiration rates” (the loss of water from soil by evaporation and plant transpiration), and adjusting irrigation schedules. However, Governale says that his department has recently begun to experiment with soil moisture sensors, a relatively new smart technology that he believes will greatly enhance, and possibly drive, water savings in the future.

“The beauty of soil sensors is that they are site specific,” Governale affirms. “[With weather-based controls], you’ll have one or just a few centralized weather stations using the science and data they collect to set off the irrigation stations in all or many of your park sites.”

He continues, “We have a 40-acre site where we’ve installed 13 or 14 soil sensors connected to two or three individual irrigation stations each. Those sensors are specific to those stations and those particular areas of the soil. That’s where you really start saving water, and that’s being waterwise.”

According to Dana Lonn, managing director of The Toro Company’s Center for Advanced Turf Technology, the precision made possible by soil sensors makes them both a potentially major incoming trend in turfgrass irrigation — and a necessary one. He draws a modern-day comparison to their usefulness.

“If you are going to control the temperature in a room, how do you do it?” he asks. “Our grandparents would put wood or coal in a stove. But now we have thermostats, which are sensors that measure the temperature. And the only way to get really precise about things is to measure them.”

Lonn says a fundamental flaw with weather-based controls is that they don’t take into account how effectively rain soaks into soil. He mentions research he’s seen in which recorded water use for a tall fescue grass plot over six months was reduced by 43 percent (from 28,911 gallons to 16,417 gallons) with a weather-based irrigation system, and 62 percent (down to 11,000 gallons) with moisture sensors.

“[Soil moisture sensors] allow us to make science-based decisions and adjust the controllable in light of the uncontrollable,” Lonn adds.

Reclaiming Water
In some areas of the country, Lonn says reclaimed water is the only irrigation source available to golf courses and, in other areas, it is becoming increasingly utilized by golf courses and parks in their efforts to be water efficient.

Doug Melchior, superintendent for Overland Park Golf Course in Kansas, says his site has eliminated the use of city-treated water and experienced significant cost savings in the past 15 years by sourcing 100 percent of its irrigation needs from retention ponds. The system, a brainchild of a forward-thinking former manager, was put in place as part of a capital improvement plan in 1997.

“It’s probably one of the top five things he did to make the golf course successful,” Melchior says. “Water is very expensive in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Many golf courses spend $1,000 a day, and that doesn’t include electrical and pumping costs. [The system put in place] provides both water efficiency and operations benefits.”

Melchoir mentions Overland Park’s backup plan, which proved its worth in 2012 during a particularly rough drought. Approximately 3.5 miles from the golf course, a pump station is buried in a creek bed close to a sewage treatment plant. When emergency situations occur, Overland Park Golf Course has the rights to treat and then pump a certain quantity of the recycled water to the retention ponds.

“We set record numbers of gallons of water pumped last year,” Melchior states. “Without that supplemental irrigation supply, we would have had to make decisions about what areas to water and what areas to let go dormant or die, and there would have been extra costs to get them back up the next year. Or, we would have had to consider purchasing water from the city.”

Less is More
According to Greg Lyman, environmental programs director for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, municipalities are experimenting with cool- and warm-season turfgrasses that are durable and require less water and growing inputs. For example, Boise is currently trying out cultivars such as “Rhizomatous Tall Fescue” and “Clover Nitrofixer.”

Lonn also notes a trend toward salt-tolerant grasses like Paspalum, which are critical for irrigation systems sourcing recycled water.

But, as Lyman emphasizes, it’s not necessarily about what’s best, but what’s expendable. “One of the most important trends we are seeing in the industry is the critical evaluation of acreage that actually needs to be irrigated,” Lyman states, referencing USGA’s “Maintenance Up the Middle” program, which encourages a water focus around golf-course tees, fairways and greens. Non-critical areas are examined for potential conversion to low or no-utility grass or native plant areas.

It’s a concept that’s being applied in municipal golf courses and park and recreation agencies.

“When we design parks, we use as little turf as possible,” says landscape architect Tom Gibson of Los Angeles, California, Recreation and Parks. Through a five-year (recently renewed) partnership with Los Angeles Water and Power, Gibson’s department recorded a 30 percent reduction in water use. And, despite adding 18 parks over the past year through Los Angeles’ ambitious 50 Parks Initiative, the department has decreased overall turf acreage throughout its 450-plus parks and facilities.

“We look to eliminate turf not highly used by the public for active sports or passive recreation,” Gibson says. “This means using mulching, and native and regionally compatible plants. It takes the public a little getting used to, but they are responding in a more positive way [which he credits to education]…and it’s becoming more desirable and more requested in the community.”

When Stone Mountain Golf Club by Marriott — which resides on Georgia state parkland — converted 12 of its 142 acres of turf back into native grasses and wildflowers, it did so as part of a formal set of best management practices (BMPs) established in 2006-2007 following a series of droughts. According to Anthony Williams, director of grounds, this resulted in a $28,000 reduction in chemical and fertilizer use in the first year alone and a savings of 100 million gallons of water to date. But what is particularly impressive to Williams is the extent to which the turf conversion naturally led to the restoration of wildlife and connector habitats, and the creation of hunting and nesting sites.

“In the master environmental plan, we needed to decrease water use,” he says. “These native areas that allowed us to save water initially actually reestablished the original food chain by recovering indigenous varieties of plants and animals. It’s true sustainability.”

Williams mentions other initiatives related to the club’s water-efficiency efforts, including the installation of more than 100 nesting boxes and the creation of an outdoor classroom for troubled youth.

“Water conservation is the cornerstone of all our other environmental programs,” he affirms. “Our green program in the beginning was a simple concept that spun to other things, changing us from ‘sort of a green space’ to a world-class green space.”


Georgia Best Management Practices in Water Efficiency
After a series of droughts in the early to mid-2000s, golf courses in Georgia faced harsh water restrictions. In response, the Georgia Golf Course Superintendents Association (GGCSA), along with the University of Georgia and Turf Ecosystems, LLC, worked to establish a set of formal best management practices (BMPs) to increase water efficiency in golf courses and encourage dialogue with regulators.

“We said, ‘Can we work together to establish something that works?’” states Anthony Williams, director of grounds for Stone Mountain Golf Club and then GGCSA vice president. “We came to an agreement that if we could get 75 percent of our member golf courses under a written BMP plan, the state would come back and work with us on more reasonable drought restriction guidelines.”

After an intense amount of effort and collaboration — Williams says they put a physical person at every town hall meeting about the droughts from one end of the state to the other — the BMPs were launched in 2007 with a 97 percent participation rate, and GGCSA had a way to communicate accurate golf course water-use information and techniques. “We were able to prove we weren’t wasting as much water as everyone would assume,” he adds.

Williams notes the water savings of 100 million gallons at Stone Mountain. He also cites other benefits, such as an exemption provided to participants on time-sequence restrictions during droughts.

The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America is now using the BMP plan as a model to inspire golf course managers in other parts of the U.S.


Amy Kapp is a freelance writer in northern Virginia.