WaterSOLV™ Success at AZ Country Club featured in Golf Course Industry Magazine
Kirby Putt of Arizona Country Club discusses the innovations of WaterSOLV™ chemistry with Hal Phillips; freelance writer, managing director of Mandarin Media, Inc., and former editor-in-chief of Golf Course News.
FEBRUARY 26, 2024
Read the full article with Todd and Kirby on GolfCourseIndustry.com.
“‘You have two things to worry about on a golf course: soil science and water quality,’ says Kirby Putt, CGCS, the director of agronomy at Arizona Country Club in Phoenix. ‘I knew we had a problem with salt, on account of our water quality, but we sat on our hands. We had a guy come here from the University of Arizona a few years back. He needed a dowel rod to hammer in his soil sampler on my 10th fairway.’
‘Today, I could go out there right now and push one down 4 inches with my body weight.’
Three-plus years ago, Putt — a 30-year veteran of turf management in the desert, where irrigation water is notoriously poor; where sodium-rinsing rains are rare — first engaged with Todd Eden, owner of Scottsdale-based HCT, which markets uniquely prescriptive soil and water remediation services to golf course superintendents. Eden and HCT started out in the well world, mainly on behalf of municipalities. That’s how Putt was originally connected. ‘Our well guy said I should talk to them,’ Putt says. ‘So right away he’s got some street cred.’
Because the water situation in Greater Phoenix is so sketchy, in terms of volume and quality, Eden had recognized HCT’s expertise and particular skill set might well benefit course superintendents. The firm now works with more than 220 separate golf facility clients. However, when Putt first encountered Eden, there were only two: down the road from ACC at The Wigwam Resort and municipal Papago Golf Club.
HCT serves soil, water and well clients via a brand called WaterSOLV™, which provides proprietary chemical solutions that allow the sustainable treatment and remediation of water and, eventually, the soils absorbing that water. It’s a testing service that takes the next step: prescription. The company tests, then shares exhaustive water and soil analysis with clients, measuring total soil composition, available plant nutrition and nutritional needs. Its chemigation treatments are based around the injection of carefully calibrated doses of a proprietary blend containing hydrochloride in one and hydrogen peroxide in the other.
In short, HCT treats irrigation water that, in turn with more chemistry, remediates the soil.
While water and vegetation issues are universal their causes are complex and specific. That's why we created our own soil and water testing matrix to create custom prescriptions for our customers that are aimed at solving the source of problems, and reducing the need not only for wetting agents, sulfuric acid, gypsum and manual aerification, but reducing the need for our chemistry as well. Most of our long term users are on maintenance programs using just 1-6 ppm of a custom percentage of each product injected directly into their irrigation system.
From turf to wells to agriculture, WaterSOLV™ is challenging conventional water and soil treatment practices and solving problems previously thought to be manageable at best.
HCT's purpose and privilege is providing sustainable and cost effective solutions to the chronic problems that plague soil health in the world of water and agronomy. We consistently reduce water demand 15% and increase crop yields 18% and more. When you treat water ‘well’ with WaterSOLV™ you increase efficiency, decrease costs, increase yield, improve pore space and add oxygen chemically. We can show you how to restore soil infiltration and soil operability just by treating your water and for substantially less than you're spending now.
