Irrigation System Update

As many of you have probably heard, our 21 year old irrigation system had some issues just over a week ago. During the night after the Wild Hog tournament, a fuse in the 3 phase transformer that powers the irrigation system and building blew out. I had Nodak Electric at the golf course as soon as I could on Friday. They tried replacing the fuse, but there was too much damage and corrosion (from previous floods) in the transformer that it needed to be replaced. They spent a good portion of that Friday replacing the transformer, only for us to find out later that afternoon that a component in the irrigation system panel had been wrecked from the outage. I got that part ordered ASAP Friday afternoon, but didn't receive it until Tuesday. Once our electrician and I got that part replaced, we started the pumps up, only to find that our larger 40 horse power pump motor had burned out.

We are fortunate enough to have our smaller 20HP pump working, so that I can still run a few irrigation zones at a time. Although, one small 20HP pump is not even close enough to irrigate the entire course in one night.

This was not an ideal time for our pumps to stop working (there isn't an ideal time for it to happen ever), but we were fortunate to get some rain this past week. We also spent many hours using our tractor and water tanks to keep our greens and tees alive. Our fairways have really only received rain water since the day our pumps went out and have shown a few areas of drying up, but these will bounce back with a little time.

We did have some localized dry spots pop up on various greens that steamy Friday when the pump station went down, but most spots have healed up nicely with just a few to go. I assure you that we are doing everything possible to heal the greens up. We have applied a wetting agent to help push water down thru the thatch layer and down to the roots on our greens and tees.

Our 40HP pump motor is currently being rebuilt in Fargo, and should be done sometime mid week. I will get it installed and running as soon as I get it back. This incident shows how important a properly working irrigation system is to a golf course!