Winter Watering Practices

Just a quick reminder; if we have a prolonged dry period consider hand watering your lawn. There aren’t specific watering requirements for a lawn in the winter, but there are a couple things to keep in mind.

1. If you have newly sodded or seeded areas, make sure these areas get a good, deep watering at least once a month throughout winter. (.5-1 inch of watering depth.)

2. Water only on a day when the air and soil temperatures are above 40 degrees. If you were to look at the soil map today, as I just did, you would see the soil temperature is currently between 25-30 degrees. Also, make sure you water at a time of the day such that the water has a chance to soak into the soil before temperatures drop below freezing. My recommendation is to plan ahead. If we have been dry and you want to water, check the soil temperatures. This will be a good gauge if you should even water the next day. If the soil temps are too cold, water won’t soak in very well. Then, look at the weather. Will it be above 40? If yes, plan to water that next day. Keep in mind outside air temperatures. When I plan on watering, I like to check the air temp around 10am and noon to ensure the temperature is above 40 degrees.

3. Remember, while snow fall does bring water to our turf, it’s not as much as you would expect. For every inch of snow we get, we only get about 10% translated into water. Another way of putting it; if we get 5 inches of snow, that’s the equivalent of .5 inches of water, which is how much we would want every month or so.

*My theory, if we receive 5 inches of snow in a given month then no need to water. If we had less, consider spot watering troubled areas at the end of the month. If we got no snow, consider hand watering the entire turf.

**These practices will genuinely help your turf this following season!

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