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Toro offers water reduction solutions for California courses

By |  May 26, 2015 0 Comments

California golf courses have received plenty of attention as key targets for water-savings efforts after Governor Jerry Brown’s recent announcement mandating a 25 percent statewide reduction in water use.

Toro Lynx Central Control

Toro Lynx Central Control

“Golf course superintendents around the world know that it makes good sense to reduce water usage to be good environmental stewards and to help improve business profitability,” says Rhett Evans, CEO for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA). “They are continually using improved irrigation technologies and turf grasses that are more drought resistant. Water management and drought management programs continue to be priorities for our industry.”

The Toro Company, with its irrigation business based in California, offers products for golf courses and superintendents to help manage water use.

Products like Toro’s Lynx Central Control Software may help superintendents apply water to their course with precision. Some Toro systems even allow courses to control irrigation watering times down to the second, according to Toro.

By leveraging a Toro golf irrigation system with an integrated weather station, pump station and wireless soil sensors, Toro says superintendents can deliver the highly desirable firm and fast conditions players expect with as little water as possible.

Toro Sprinkler

Toro Sprinkler

Toro’s Turf Guard wireless soil sensing technology measures soil moisture, salinity and temperature to help superintendents monitor what is going on beneath the surface of their course. Turf Guard helps courses account for how much moisture is in the soil to determine specific areas that need watering, and can even alert them when defined thresholds are exceeded to shut down the system.

“Our Turf Guard system is a powerful addition to ET,” says Tom Hogan, landscape operations director at Ocean Hills Country Club in Oceanside, Calif. “The sensor data provides feedback from multiple locations on the golf course, allowing me to adjust watering to match the specific requirements of every green, tee and fairway.”

Sprinklers are also key contributors to water use reduction. Toro golf sprinklers nozzle options and adjustment capabilities allow for water precision.

Toro’s Center for Advanced Turf Technology (CATT) has developed site assessment technology for golf courses and sports fields known as PrecisionSense. This innovative technology helps to identify areas for improvement through the measurement of key soil and turf health attributes and by showing course managers what happens to irrigation water after it’s applied to the soil. This technology has also been used to verify water and resource efficiency once improvements and upgrades have been implemented.

Toro Turf Guard

Toro Turf Guard

In Monterey, Calif., Poppy Hills Golf Course, owned and operated by the Northern California Golf Association, completely renovated and upgraded their irrigation system last year to include Toro’s Lynx software, Turf Guard sensors and sprinklers.

“Water savings was one of the key factors in why we chose to renovate,” says Matt Muhlenbruch, Poppy Hills superintendent. “Using Toro products helped us quickly achieve our water savings goals and improve course conditions overall. We are well positioned to help the state achieve 25 percent water savings going forward.” Poppy Hills hired Robert Trent Jones II Golf Course Architects to lead the course renovation and utilized Toro’s PrecisionSense service to help them justify the investment in their new irrigation system, and optimize the use of Turf Guard sensors and the overall system once installed and operational.

This article is tagged with and posted in Industry News


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