“Are you digging for gold?”

By Alistair October 21, 2023 06:45

Chris Browett, the assistant deputy course manager at The Richmond Golf Club in London, a club he’s worked at for the last 11 years, talks to irrigation expert John Kidson about his work, maintaining the irrigation system at the club and what golfers often ask what he’s really doing.

Thank you, Chris, for your time and it’s great to catch up with you again. During this season’s magazine articles I’ve been creating content for future irrigation techs and sharing general knowledge. With that in mind I would like to ask you a few questions.

Have you always had an interest in irrigation, or has it grown along the way?

Since I started greenkeeping I have always had an interest in irrigation, I think mainly as it was a job I always saw the same greenkeeper doing and I wanted to know what it was. However, as I have been maintaining the irrigation, my passion has definitely grown along the way and I’m always keen to learn more.

I have always loved dealing with problems and our older system definitely throws them at me. I enjoy that each problem can have many different solutions. Something like a head now coming up – there could be about 10 different reasons why it’s not working. Irrigation systems can definitely keep you on your toes, as if it’s going to have a fault, it will do when it’s 30 degrees.

How much of your time is spent on irrigation?

I spend a fair amount of my time maintaining irrigation, mainly I spend time in spring during start up and auditing each year to ensure our system is running to its full potential. I will then drop in and out during the summer to do any repairs that may need doing or planning work to be carried out in winter such as laying new pipework and installing heads.

Who or what has helped you gain more knowledge?

I have learnt a lot from previous greenkeepers that have worked on the system but I am mainly self-taught and learnt along the way by digging holes and working out how to fix it. I have also built very good relationships with irrigation contractors – this being John Kidson for over a year.

Tell us an example of a common issue you face with your current system?

We struggle mainly with the age of our system being 24 years old, parts such as decoders and plungers are coming to the end of their lives and some wiring connections are getting weak. Sticking plungers are one of the biggest annoyances as they either get stuck on, so you come into a river in the morning, or they get stuck off and you don’t realise until the area is drying out. It’s an easy fix once it has been noticed though.

Any stories of irrigation down time, and how you resolved the scenario?

During Storm Eunice in February 2022, we had a massive lime tree fall straight through our pump house, destroying all three of our pumps. It fortunately missed the control panel but still caused a lot of damage. Straight away we started to investigate how much damage there was and what needed replacing. We had John out to quote for a new pump-set which we went with, however there was a 14 week wait for the pumps.

Fortunately, we had a spare old pump sitting in the corner of the store room so we proceeded to remove the damaged pumps and strip the whole skid apart, straighten out all the bent bits and install our one pump. As stressful as this was, I loved every minute of it – getting to strip down a whole pump-set and get the one pump working.

We managed to survive the whole summer which as you may remember was a very dry one. We had only 20m3/hr so we were watering for around 16 hours a day. We feel this surprisingly actually helped us for the year as we didn’t go over our water extraction as we couldn’t put enough water out. As if we had three pumps, we would have thrown lots of water out mid-summer but be very tight towards the end.

John Kidson arrived on August 31 to install our three brand new pumps. Our one pump is now back in the corner of the store room hopefully never to be needed again.

Do you control your own stock?

We are fortunate enough to have a very healthy irrigation budget, which allows us to have spares for every eventuality. I have sole responsibility to ensure our stock levels stay correct and we have everything we may need. I will do a stocktake in September time when our yearly budget expires and order anything that I need for the next season. Doing this leaves next year’s budget healthy for any problems during the spring.

Do you take moisture tests and what is a good percentage range?

Yes, we take moisture readings throughout the season to ensure our moisture is where we want it, this is between 20 and 25 percent.

Do you have more knowledge or irrigation now than when you first started the role?

I can safely say I have gained a lot more knowledge since I have started working on irrigation as I am given time to work on the system and learn about any parts of the system I need to. When I started I had very basic knowledge. When I first started, I would say I’m fairly knowledgeable with our system now, however, I know I have so much more to learn.