Written by: Ranald Strachan
2022
Our greenkeeping teams are the cornerstone of sustainability at St Andrews and they pride themselves on high quality precise management. One excellent 'tool' is the PoGo GPS system. This probe is placed onto the greens and tees and sends moisture, temperature and salinity data to a mobile app. This data can then be downloaded from the cloud to our PC terminals.
The visual displays give a great interface and this information allows us to set moisture targets and determine irrigation percentages on any area in the GPS field. We believe irrigation is the most crucial input we give to the courses and having the ability and technology to target applications with this level of precision is an excellent way to reduce resource waste. Precision instruments like the PoGo allow us to reduce our water requirements across the estate. Technology like this may become crucial in an uncertain future regarding climate changes and rainfall and hence water availability. There are many ways to monitor and reduce water use and this is just one. Probably the most important one is to ask 'do I absolutely need to irrigate'. If you do, make it count.
