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When purchasing a new irrigation system for Lakewood Ranch Golf & Country Club’s new 18-hole golf course, which opened in 2007, golf course superintendent Brian Lentz had the opportunity to upgrade the irrigation control system for the facility’s existing 36-holes.

Before joining Lakewood Ranch in Bradenton, Fla. five years ago, Lentz only had operated Toro irrigation systems. Lakewood Ranch had a Rain Bird Nimbus II.

Though Lentz invested a lot of time familiarizing himself with the different technology, he wasn’t set on staying with Rain Bird for the new course’s control system. Lentz considered a few options but ultimately chose the Rain Bird Cirrus for the new course and an upgrade to the existing course.

“We wanted something that was easy to manipulate and communicate with,” he says. “We had the Rain Bird Nimbus II system here for several years so we were familiar with it. We didn’t rule out any other systems for that third 18 holes, but overall, we found the ease of programming and making changes to the system was superior.”

No matter the manufacturer, the advanced technology of modern central control systems has done a lot for superintendents’ ability to save time and water, Lentz says. With 54 holes, any savings are a boon to the maintenance department’s $3-million budget.

Lentz had experience selecting a new central control system. At the previous facility at which he worked, he was involved in the decision to upgrade from a Toro VT II to a Toro OSMAC, a transition he called going from the stone age to the computer age.

“It was heaven for us,” he says. “Technology definitely has given us more time to do our jobs and the ability to more efficiently use the water. We’re not spending as much time dealing with individual timers – the computer can do all that. We can water more stringently – we’re not having to blanket the golf course.

Feature rich

At Lakewood Ranch, the Rain Bird Cirrus system allows Lentz to achieve water and labor savings with a variety of features.

The No. 1 efficiency-creating aspect of Lakewood Ranch’s system is the MI, or mobile controller, capability.

“I use it daily,” Lentz says, noting he can log on through his cell phone or any Internet connection and make any adjustment he could make sitting in front of the computer, including run times, start times and program percentage controls. Previously, Lentz only was able to make limited adjustments from a wireless radio, which his two assistants and two irrigation technicians still use.

“They can turn sprinklers on and off, but that’s about all you can do with the radios,” he says.

Lentz carries a PDA with him, as well, which houses JPEG files of the irrigation system’s maps. Using Blue Tooth technology, he can access these maps via Internet from his cell phone.

“From anywhere on the golf course or from anywhere, really, I can just turn on my PDA, go to Internet Explorer, turn on the interface to the Rain Bird system and have all my maps right there. I can flip through them and see what sprinklers I need to be running, and I can flip back to Internet Explorer and make adjustments.”

Doing it the old way, Lentz had to look at the maps on his PDA and then use the wireless radio to run sprinklers. If he wanted to make adjustments, he’d have to write them down and make them later at the shop on the computer.

“Now I can do it all right then and there,” he says. “So I spend less time sitting in front of the computer screen, that’s for sure.”

Saving water

Water-saving features are another plus of the newest irrigation systems on the market. For example, Lentz’s program is set up to delineate greens, tees, roughs and landscape areas. During water shortages, Lentz can quickly cut off irrigation to the roughs, for example, saving water without affecting course conditions.

“You couldn’t make those fine-tune adjustments daily with the old systems,” he says.

Another water-saver at Lakewood Ranch is the Cirrus’ ability to add up to four rain cans. The facility currently uses three cans – one in each of the north, center and south areas of the property – which allow Lentz to program the system to adjust itself accordingly in each area based on rainfall.

Lentz has the system programmed to make adjustments at rainfall levels of 0.1 inches and 0.3 inches. The system pauses for an hour when rainfall reaches 0.1 inches. If no additional rain occurs during that hour, the system deducts the amount of rainfall received and adjusts runtimes accordingly. If the 0.3-inch mark is reached, the system will shut down for 48 hours.

“We’ve had numerous occasions where it has rained more than 0.5 inches on the north end, and we’ve gotten no rain on the south end,” he says.

Having different rain cans for different areas of the course allows the system to make temporary adjustments only where needed, reducing overwatering.

Another feature that cuts back on overwatering is Lentz’s ability to adjust the percentage run time for a set duration of days in each station. For example, this feature, which Lentz uses daily, allows the maintenance staff to increase one station as much as 150 percent or down to 50 percent for any area between one and 30 days. After the programmed duration has ended, the system resets to its original run time. The percentage adjustments can be anywhere between 0 percent and 300 percent.

“Having this feature allows us to micromanage each area of the course without the fear of overwatering or underwatering because we forgot to reset the run-time back to a normal setting,” Lentz says. “It takes the human error out of the equation and resets the run time for us.”

Advice

Having gone through several central control upgrades, Lentz has advice for other superintendents. One recommendation is to purchase a program that runs daily to back up the central control system’s data.

“Most of the computerized systems require a large amount of startup data that’s stored in a database,” he says. “This database is the life of the system, and if something happens to it, you basically need to start from scratch.”

An automatic program that downloads this information and can be stored off property is the ideal back-up mechanism, he says.
Secondly, the most important thing is supplier support – technical, mechanical and educational.

“That’s the key, making sure the manufacturer support base is there with whatever system you’re going to purchase,” Lentz says.
For him, that means enrolling in Rain Bird’s GSP program.

“We can call them any time and get the support we need,” he says. “Although I haven’t used them for this, they can log in to our computer if they need to and use PC Anywhere to maneuver around the system and find out what problem there may be. They also cover hardware – anything to do with the computer itself or the controllers. If anything happens, they’ll troubleshoot or send us a replacement within 24 hours.”

Lentz likens his GSP agreement, which costs about $5,000 for a five-year plan, to an insurance policy.

“You never want to go to the club manager and say, ‘We didn’t renew our GSP, so we didn’t have the support we needed to solve a problem.’ Some guys would say you don’t need it, but even though I feel I’m well versed with computers and the program, you need the support.” GCI