Capel Golf Club – Automated Reticulation System
- Mick Templeman, Chairman of Board (2008-2009)

Capel Golf Club was first introduced to the Calclear product in 2008 when investigating high iron build-up in piping associated with the conversion of our manual watering system to a fully automated reticulation system. Following discussions with our local irrigation specialist, we undertook a trial for performance evaluation of the recommended Calclear Hydro 200 Water Conditioning Unit.

The unit was installed on one of our two water bores, (supply holes 1-9) with the second bore (supply holes 10-18) to be used as a control standard for comparing results from the Calclear unit that included sampling and analyses from three locations, initial supply, mid point and end of the existing reticulation piping.

Removable piping sections were installed at the mid-point in both networks allowing us to monitor iron scale built-up on new piping and to record any visual changes to the existing build up within our systems.

Our water sampling and analyses programme indicated a vast improvement in ferrous iron retention throughout our system compared to the control bore where losses in ferrous iron was significant by the mid-point sampling station and up to 40% lower at the end point compared to Calclear treated water.

From our installed piping section we observed very little soft scale type build up and a marked breakdown of existing piping scale from the Calclear treated water whilst hard scale build up remained in the control bore water supply piping.

Additional benefits have been gained as a result of the Calclear units with the most notable being the improvement of grass condition on the fairways and greens. This improvement, we believe, comes from the water penetration benefits and the ability to take up available nutrients within the Calclear treated water.

Installation of the Calclear Hydro 200 unit on our second bore was undertaken in 2009 prior to this summers watering programme and as a result, our overall course condition shows the improvement we observed following the testwork with the first Calclear unit.

Capel Golf Club is well satisfied with the overall performance of both our Calclear units and now we have our first 9 holes on automatic reticulation, course quality continues to improve and the benefits of Calclear treated water continues to become evident.

FLORACO - Cut Flowers March 2006

Floraco is WA’s largest undercover producer of fresh exotic cut flowers.

The flowers are grown with a state of the art computerised Hydroponic watering system.

In September of 2005 a CALCLEAR Hydro 80 was installed to the 65mm main line feeding the greenhouse of Gerberas to eliminate the build up of minerals in the mains and laterals.

In the following March of 2006 Floraco production manager Mr Guy DeKok explained the following results were obtained by the use of the CALCLEAR on this crop.

• The foliage was predominantly greener
• The stems are longer
• Plants are able to tolerate the heat more readily
• There is no longer a build up of mineral deposits on the bottom of the pots, in fact the pots have cleaned up considerably in the time the CALCLEAR has been operational
• The CALCLEAR appears to assist in the overall growing of the flowers ensuring a better quality product
• The cost of the unit has well and truly been paid for by the results obtained

Floraco have now purchased an additional unit and is being installed on their crop of greenhouse roses which are drip fed with a duplicate hydroponic system.