In the UK we are known for our preoccupation with the weather. On the other side of the world this preoccupation is taken to even greater lengths; but the focus is on just one specific aspect of the weather - the rain - and, more particularly, the absence of it.


DYING OF TH Melbourne - a course M


any areas of Australia have been suffering from near drought conditions for most of the last decade. Brisbane, on the east coast, is the worst hit, with current dam levels at 20% of capacity, whilst some of the other major cities, such as Melbourne, Perth and Canberra, are faring marginally better at 40% capacity. Bear in mind that these figure were issued after the main rain-producing months of winter, and summer is just about to begin, so the situation is only likely to worsen. This was the key issue on my mind when I called in to see Jim Porter, Superintendent at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. As if to emphasise the point, the weather presenter on the car radio announced that today’s high was going to be 36 degrees centigrade (97 degrees Fahrenheit). Today was 20th November, still only springtime down under - the hotter summer months of December, January and February are still ahead! Jim is in his eighteenth year at Melbourne, and he accepts that the water shortage issue is his major concern for the future. However, that has not always been the case. In fact, Jim is the only Superintendent at the course to have an


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automatic sprinkler system at his disposal. “The current system was commissioned just after I started in 1989,” he said. “Work on it had begun a couple of years earlier, and it was put in to meet the growing demand for summer golf. We never used to have summer golf here, but now it’s our main playing season.” “Interestingly,” he continued, “we then went through a period in the early nineties when our rainfalls were quite extreme, and particularly the summer rainfalls. It was quite tropical, we were getting an inch of rain, and sometimes two inches, in a matter of hours. The course is on sand, so there was little in the way of a drainage system, and what was in place was extremely old.” “As a result, it couldn't cope, and we


had extensive flooding in some areas, and the water was lying on the surface for two or three days. The floods had quite an impact on the turf quality, particularly on the fairways.” Summer golf has made a massive


difference to the way Jim and his team (25 full time and 3 part time staff) prepare the course and deal with that most precious of resources - water. Bore


water has always been available, but there is a growing dependence on this source, which is of great concern to Jim, as he explained. “Traditionally, pre the irrigation system, the club didn’t water the course much at all, apart from the greens, and they were done with a shandy of bore water and town water. However, those were the days when we were irrigating around two hectares of golf course, but now, because of summer play, we are trying to irrigate fifty hectares!”


“Up until three or four years ago,” Jim continued, “75% of our water usage was potable water and 25% bore water; now we are 70% bore water. The yield from the bores hasn’t changed, we’ve just had had less potable water to use. The problem, however, with bore water, particularly with the drought conditions, the yields have gone down (about 50% on last year), salt levels have gone up and, because you are using a lot more of the bore water on your greens, all those issues such as bicarbonate and sodium levels in the soils get transferred on to the greens.” Currently, stage 3A water restrictions are in force in Melbourne, and have been


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