I was inspired by Bulldog 19 asking about dragging, so I thought I’d ask about watering the IF dirt.

Do you have automatic sprinklers you can use, or if you use a hose, is it ¾” or 1”, do you use a nozzle of some type, and how much water do you put down?

We use a fire hose with a nozzle. Don't water the infield dirt enough though. Typically the dirt close to the infield grass gets soaked pretty good when watering the infield grass. We use a sprinkler with the fire hose for that. Normally if we want to just water the mound and the plate area we will use a garden hose rather than pulling out the fire hose.

Our field has an irrigation zone for watering the infield dirt(these are located along the grass line at the back of the infield). Plus, the heads located at 1b,2b,and 3b are set to assist with watering the dirt. Our dirt has a good amount of Turface, so even during very hot and dry periods it's easy to get it back to a better playing condition. We tend to water once a week. We have 11 stations that run for 45-60 minutes each.

quote:

Originally posted by SoutherNo1:
Our field has an irrigation zone for watering the infield dirt(these are located along the grass line at the back of the infield). Plus, the heads located at 1b,2b,and 3b are set to assist with watering the dirt. Our dirt has a good amount of Turface, so even during very hot and dry periods it's easy to get it back to a better playing condition. We tend to water once a week. We have 11 stations that run for 45-60 minutes each.

WHEW! 45-60 minutes sure seems like a long time to water at one time. I’m guessing you have some tremendous drainage, but a lot depends on the amount of water you’re dumping on the field too.

Do you guys have problems with the heads malfunctioning? Contrary to the advertisements coming from Toro, Rainbird, etc, we’v found that heads fairly close to the IF dirt have a bad habit of clogging, sticking, and other malfunctions. Our maint super finally decided to run a little test and had the crew clean the filters on all the heads near the dirt on one field every couple weeks, but leave the other ones alone until something happened.

The number of problem calls on the field that had the preventive cleanings done dropped almost to nothing, while the other field remained as its been for the last 10 years, where at least 6 of the 20 heads close to the IF dirt needed replaced, and there were weekly trouble calls for one thing or another.

The trouble with many irrigation systems is, much of the time there’s no one around when the irrigation is running, so little problems aren’t caught until they turn into big problems.

Who’s in charge of your field’s maintenance?

We do have good drainage so the watering intervals don't pose a problem except in a couple of low spots. We seem to always have a sprinkler head with some problem. While the school system maintenance dept. is good about fixing what's needed, they are simply overworked, and can't keep it perfect. I hope to get some training to handle most of the problems myself. I'll certainly check on that filter cleaning. Thanks.

Low spots and malfunctioning sprinkler heads are the bane of groundskeepers everywhere, and overworked and understaffed school maintenance departments are sadly more the norm than the exception.

Depending on the kinds of heads you have, its very likely there’s someone in the area who can show you the basics of adjusting, cleaning, and repairing heads, Usually the distributor can lead you to that person.

I’m lucky here where I live. We have a maintenance staff with at least 6 gardeners who’ve been doing this stuff for over 20 years, and can take apart and put together anything having to do with an irrigation system in a heartbeat. But what may be a great resource for you, is a local golf course. Unless you’re talking about Augusta or some similar place with unlimited funds, golf courses usually have at least one person around who knows heads inside and out.

Good luck with your endeavor! I know how difficult it is to work with a school system’s maintenance department.