Monday, July 2, 2012

When Should You Water Your Lawn? And How Much?

Deep and infrequent watering is better for lawns than frequent sprinkles, which promote shallow root growth, says RRR Lawn & Landscape, In general, lawns need about one inch of water per week to maintain green color and active growth.

Lawns that receive less than that will likely go into dormancy. To stay alive, dormant lawns should still receive at least 1 inch of water per month.

To check the output of a sprinkler, scatter some pie tins around the yard to see how much water collects in a specific length of time. Having a rain gauge ($5 to $20) will help you keep track of how much water the lawn receives naturally. Allowing a cool-season lawn to go dormant in the summer can save hundreds of gallons of water, depending on the size of your lawn.

1 comment:

  1. This is a nice post but the information is about 20 years old and should be updated. It is true that 20 years ago we stated that a lawn needs 1 inch of water per week but that is a very simple approach to professional turf management.

    There are a couple of factors that determine how you should water your lawn.

    1. What type of soil are you in? Clay, loam or sand? You can pretty much tell by putting a shovel into the ground six inches and see what you have or just look around the natural surroundings. Certain areas of Ada, Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids and even Hudsonville have a clay soil and then again certain area of Ada and Jenison have a very sandy soil. So your soil type should determine your watering. Clay has the ability to hold more water for a longer period of time and sand might not hold enough water for a day. So if you water a sandy soil deep, the water will go beyond the root system and will do little good. So on a clay soil you might water every other day in this extreme heat but in a sandy soil you want to make sure that you water every day.
    2. Roots of different types of grasses have a different growing habit. For example, turf type tall fescue has a very deep root system. I saw this in Woodstock IL this morning where the lawn was completely dormant but the patches of turf type tall fescue was completely green. Bluegrass root systems have a natural habit of not being as deep in the summer as they are in the spring and fall. Consequently, you need to water according to the root system also. At UC Davis about 20 years ago they did a study on roots and ran water 12 inches under the turf grass and then also watered a different section of turf grass from the top. The top watering won.

    There is also the time of day that you should consider watering. The best time for turf management is after 10 AM and before 4 PM. The big reason is that night time watering may promote disease and day time watering cools the plant which is a big deal to the grass.

    Conclusion, learn your soil, know your plants root system and water to keep it alive. Don't get behind, dormancy take at least 10 to 15 days to come out of and then after that you will probably have a huge crop of crabgrass.