Weather Data and Watering Update

	January 2013	January 2012	average
Rainfall	25 mm	25.5 mm	25 mm
Year to Date	25 mm	25.5 mm	-
No. of rain days	3	4	-
Average Temp.	29.3°C	32.2 °C	-
Average Humidity	55.6%	48.2 %	-

The current watering situation had a significant effect on January's work scheduling. Obviously, the main emphasis for January was using the available water as efficiently as possible, this January we only used @ 37% of water through automated programs compared to last year. A far greater than normal amount of hand watering has been carried out to ensure that we get water to the areas we are specifically targeting and also maximum benefit from its application.

The 13.5mm of much needed rainfall we received on the last day of January brought us some welcome relief and brought us up to the monthly average total. This doesn’t tell the whole story as to date the last five months have been particularly dry, and the unusual thing about this year’s weather pattern compared to other dry years is that we have only received three rainfall events in excess of 10mm since September 7^{th –}

·         October 11^th – 24mm

·         January 13^th – 11mm

·         January 31^st – 13.5mm

This has meant that there has not been the usual relief from the need to irrigate because of regular rainfall events. This has the twofold effect of not being able to rest the bores or pump additional water into the 15^th holding dam like we have been able to do in more typical years.

	February 2013	February 2012	average
Rainfall	13.5 mm	42.5 mm	22.3 mm
Year to Date	38.5 mm	68 mm	47.4 mm
No. of rain days	3	5	-
Average Temp.	29.5°C	28.5°C	-
Average Humidity	61.2%	54.6%	-

February was another month of low rainfall, with the 11mm that fell in the last week of the month boosting the months total to 13.5mm. Although the average temperature for the month has been consistent with previous years, both the second and last week of the month have been cool enough that we were able to harvest water into the holding dam.

The water that was harvested (@3-4 ML) during the first cool spell was drained down and mainly used to water in the wetting agent and pre-emergent Poa annua control applications. All fairways received three full irrigation cycles over a five day period (@2.14 ML) which gave them a much needed boost. The water that was harvested during the second cool spell was drained down at the start of this week and is currently being utilised over the next few days to water in the fairway fertiliser application which was applied yesterday.