‘Why irrigate fields in the heat of the day?’

These are the words of Craig Wittstock, overall club chairman of Benoni Northerns Sports Club.

This comes after a member of the community expressed concern about a sprinkler that was spraying water on the club’s football pitch at around noon on Tuesday, November 10.

The community member questioned whether the club used borehole water to irrigate their fields and queried the logic behind watering the field in the peak heat of the day.

When asked to clarify the matter, Wittstock commented that the club does, indeed, have boreholes that water certain areas.

“The area in question [the football field] is watered from boreholes and we use the big sprinkler only off the borehole,” he told the City Times on Wednesday.

“We work with the council on all aspects of pitch maintenance and pool our resources as far as possible.

“It is fair to say we have a good working relationship with the council in this regard.

“On the day in question it was a club member who put on the sprinklers.

“The best time [to irrigate] is evening or early morning, but our irrigation systems are not automated, thus we need someone present to put on the sprinkler and move it.

“We can certainly avoid watering in the midday heat and have asked the people responsible to change the times to earlier or later on in the day.

“We currently irrigate only a fraction of our fields – the most vital areas.

“The area in question is only one football field, which is an exceptionally high use area on which we spend a lot of money to try and keep it in shape for the number of junior and senior football games played there.

“The area has recently been top-dressed and fertilised and, as such, requires some extra attention for a while.

“It is easy to identify this area as it is the only green grass at Northerns.”

He added that Benoni Northerns are doing their utmost to work responsibly to keep the facility available for ongoing sport.

For more information on the current water situation in Benoni click here.