Every year around this time we have a busy tournament
schedule, busy work schedule, but we are also busy planning for the next
season.
We don’t wait to think about what we could do different
until this time of year. When something positive or negative happens, when we
have a new idea, or just want to try something, we make a note immediately. When
we can, we make changes during the current season. However, once the heat of
the summer has subsided, from September forward, provides a great time for
consolidating all those thoughts and laying out a sketch of how we want to
tackle the next season. This includes planning our chemical program.
September is our start to the budget season. Supplies,
labor, projects, and chemical budgets are all projected. Lucky for us, October
is also the month that our chemical and fertilizer suppliers have designated as
the time for early orders. We order a vast majority of our chemical and
fertilizer needs for the next year in bulk during October. The companies make
it well worth our time to place our orders in October, providing anywhere from
4-16% rebates per company depending on which items are selected and quantities
purchased. Often, products are also cheaper than there in-season price at this time
too.
Like building a budget of any kind, we work methodically
through scenarios for the upcoming season. We know exactly what we used in the
current year, we have a general idea about what the weather will be like at
certain times (May probably rainy, July will be hot, etc.), and we know what
changes we want to make.
Where this planning is especially pertinent is with our
chemical program. We project nearly every single application we will make for
the entire upcoming season, right now. We select chemicals that will provide
protection against the diseases we know we will have at various points during
the year. We know precisely the size of the areas that we will be spraying and
can thus calculate the total volume per application. Then, taking the number of
applications we make to a certain location and how much of a certain product is
used in each application, we can calculate the total volume of each product for
the season. Doing this for every product that we will use gives us our budget.
Even better, this also shows us what we need to order early.
We do leave room in the budget for unexpected situations.
Sometimes a disease is abundant in a season and we may need more of a specific
chemical. So, we don’t spend all our allotted money right now. But making our
purchases now is convenient, cost-effective, and takes a lot of the guess work
out of the next year.
Having a framework for the next year is helpful to anyone
who needs to create a budget. The same is true for the Grounds department. We
are also able to save a significant amount of money by using that framework to
quantify our chemical needs and order early.
Etiquette Reminder of the Month
When parking your cart at a tee or green, please keep all 4
tires on the cart path.
Also, as part of a Golf Committee initiative to improve
course etiquette, we have included links to videos teaching proper on course
etiquette. Please take a moment to watch:
See you on the course!
Joe
jvillegas@bwrc.org
No comments:
Post a Comment
Have a question or comment? Share it with Joe!