Golf course irrigation is estimated to use more than 476 billion gallons of water in the U.S. each year. With water consumption in the southwest at a reported 88 million gallons per course annually, it is not surprising that water districts in the Sun Belt are seeking innovative ways to help superintendents use water more efficiently while still maintaining aesthetics and playability.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and several of its agencies have initiated a rebate program that encourages superintendents to switch out plastic rotor nozzles and replace them with solid metal FCI Profile (Full Coverage Irrigation) nozzles, proven to apply water more efficiently.
Entitled “Save Water – Save a Buck,” the MWD program applies to four southern California counties, and offers golf courses a $13.00 rebate per replacement set of metal nozzles. The participating districts include: Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County and southern Ventura County.
Under the program, there is a 25-nozzle minimum and no maximum on the metal nozzle sets that can be retrofitted.
A growing number of southern California golf courses have already replaced the plastic nozzles on their large rotary sprinklers with Underhill FCI high-uniformity metal nozzles and have received full rebates for the cost of the new nozzles. With the average southern California course using 1,500 sprinklers, the nozzle savings are substantial.
The “Save Water – Save a Buck” program was implemented following a comprehensive study on nozzle performance on golf courses conducted by the Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT), headquartered at California State University in Fresno, CA.
After two years of irrigation performance testing at five representative California courses, CIT concluded that Underhill FCI metal nozzles retrofitted to Rain Bird or Toro golf rotors performed with higher distribution uniformity, indicating greater efficiency while saving water, energy and maintenance.
Manufactured exclusively by Underhill, FCI Profile metal nozzles are the only nozzles listed by the MWD on the approved vendor list for replacement rebates for large rotary golf course sprinklers.
Southern California superintendents (in the participating counties) who are interested in switching out their plastic nozzles to FCI metal nozzles can find out more at the MWD website: www.bewaterwise.com or by calling the rebate program coordinator at: 877-728-2282.
The complete CIT study can viewed on the CIT website at Cati.csufresno.edu/cit/ and click on “Golf Course Irrigation Nozzle Study,” or on the Underhill website at www.underhill.us. Click through to Sprinkler nozzles and go to CIT Study.
