Properly installed, a drain will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is virtually maintenance free. A drainage system is truly an investment that will repay you many times over
corrections to keep the drain lines at the designed slope and depth, an important factor where the undulating terrain of a golf course is concerned. A sand or sand/stone mixture is used for fast removal of surface water. It is important to let the turf establish itself in the narrow sand trench rather than lay sod over the trench line. By establishing the turf in the sand, drainage performance is not affected as the water will move through the sand much faster then it would through layered sod. A filter-wrapped pipe is recommended when using sand, to avoid clogging, but not recommended with stone backfill. When designing a slit drainage system, it is important to design the drains so they run across the ground perpendicular to the direction the excess water would run, and with a positive slope (0.5 percent is often used as a minimum). The importance of a good topographical survey cannot be emphasized enough at this point. The slit trenches are installed at an average spacing of 1.5m (5 ft) and serve to collect the excess water as it runs across the ground surface, channelling the water to the collectors and then to an outlet.
Problems and solutions
Side hill seepage is a drainage problem that most golf courses seem to have, but can be remedied with a well-placed drain. Quite often the water is running along the top of a harder layer of soil or rock and will seep out when it reaches a more permeable area, usually the side of a hill or another soil type. The location and depth of the drain is critical to
intercept the water causing the drainage problems. Proper installation techniques and equipment will avoid silting in backgrades, and careful backfilling techniques will reduce damage from rocks. A good outlet is important. Well constructed, it will serve the drainage system for years. Animal guards are recommended to prevent any from entering the system and causing a blockage. They have a hinged grate on the end of the outlet to allow any debris in the system to escape.
The installation of slit drainage systems on older greens is fast becoming a viable option for greenkeepers, and can save a green from having to be totally rebuilt.
The main candidates for this system
are old push-up-style greens, which were built with little or no subsurface drainage and consist of heavier surrounding native topsoil. Through the years, they have become compacted and have developed impervious layers, causing excess water to remain on the surface and saturate the top of the rootzone. With a good drainage system, excess water is allowed to escape before it can freeze and cause damage to the surface. With the water removed, sunlight can warm the green faster, giving it a jump start for the new season.
Other problems an older green may have are high areas that drain very well and low areas that do not drain well at all. When the high areas require watering, the low areas get over-watered. Greenkeepers usually resort to hand watering in these situations. A slit
What are you like?
Matt Frost of Grasstadia - not a fan of plastic pitches, apparently, but not averse to plastic implants!
Who are you? Matt Frost, founder of Grasstadia.
Status (married, single, children etc.)? Single.
Who is your hero and why? Vincent van Gogh and cyclist Marco Pantani, both geniuses, both nutters, who were completely and utterly obsessed with their respective passions and were prepared to go to any lengths. So much so they both paid with there lives at an early age. I was fortunate enough to meet Marco in 1998.
What is your dream holiday? I want to do the space tourist thing, to see the planet from up there would be emotional to say the least. What can be imagined can be achieved.
What annoys you the most? Everyone involved with plastic turf, closely followed by traffic jams and mosquitos.
What would you change about yourself? The metal pin in my leg, I should have had it taken out in 1994, bit late now!
Who wouldn’t you like to be? An artificial pitch salesman because then I would have to find the nearest tall building and jump off it.
Favourite record, and why? True Faith by New Order, no reason, it just is.
Who would you choose to spend a romantic evening with? Nobody.
If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do? What I had planned to do five minutes before I won it! Then I’d book my space tourist flight.
If you were to describe yourself as a musical instrument, what would you be? A Korg 101 synthesizer.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given? Oi!
What’s your favourite smell? There is a place in the Swiss Alps called Portes du Soleil. I can’t describe it, you would have to go there. It’s the smell of the planet, as it should be, not what it will become.
What three words would you use to describe yourself? The plastic terminator.
What talent would you like to have? The same as what makes me angry.
What makes you angry? Just about everything.
What law/legislation would you like to see introduced? To be honest I don’t care because there has been no such thing as democracy for a long time now, so my vote doesn’t count even if it’s cast.
drainage system lets the greenkeeper apply the right amount of water to the high areas, while getting rid of the excess water in the poorly draining ones.
Payback time
It is easy to figure out the cost of a drainage system in terms of material and labour, but it is sometimes harder to calculate the payback. Here are some tangible considerations to help justify such a project:
1.One or two wet spots, a waterlogged green or a fairway that stays wet after heavy rains, can slow play or even call for course shutdown for a day or more. An extra day or two of green fees plus cart rentals can more than pay for the cost of a drainage project.
2.A well-drained golf course can open earlier in the spring and can stay open later in the fall. Also, in the spring, much of the sun’s warmth is used to evaporate excess water from undrained soil, and this causes cooling. Well- drained soil is warmer in spring and thus provides for better growing conditions.
3.Major reconstruction of older greens can be avoided by a properly designed slit-trench system.
Properly installed, a drain will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is virtually maintenance free. A drainage system is truly an investment that will repay you many times over.
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