When drought strikes, it doesn’t really take that long before its negative effects start to manifest on your lawn. How long can a great lawn be preserved when the issue of water conservation is the most critical thing for its survival?
Here are a few tips to get you through the next summer drought:
Use your water efficiently.
A lot of people tend to make the erroneous assumption that the act of sprinkling their lawn a bit every day will do them much better than soaking it completely every week. This is not true. Plants require water to reach their deep roots. Watering at a depth of six to eight inches allows the deep roots create their own reservoir of moist from which they can draw from during dry periods.
In order to ascertain whether you have reached the right level of penetration with your watering, the soil should be probed with a screwdriver. If this screwdriver moves easily then you should know that this watering level is ok. If the screwdriver pushes hard then you should know that your grass needs some more water.
Never water at night.
Early in the morning is the best time to water since you do not lose water from evaporation during the heat of the midday. It also won’t encourage diseases as water evaporates from leaf blades early in the morning. This may usually be the case when you water at night and the water lays on the grass blades and creates an optimal breeding ground for diseases such as the dangerous grass fungus.
One more tip which is often overlooked is the watering schedule which should change in the weather. You should water a lot less frequently during periods of cool and wet weather, you should also shut down automatic systems in periods of rain.
When facing drought conditions it is especially important to:
-Avoid Waste. You should avoid runoff by using pulse irrigate, Sprinklers should be allowed to run for about ten minutes, they should also be turned off after this and the water should be allowed to soak in properly. After this, the soil should be watered for another ten minutes. The cycle should then be repeated until the soil is wet to a depth of about six to eight inches.
-Watch your Irrigation System to be sure it is working properly.
-Fertilize your lawn properly in order to reduce the need to have to water much more regularly. You should choose formulas which have been advertised as Ready-to-Use in order to avoid the need to mix nutrients with water. Timing your applications with regular watering can do this as well.
-Set out mower blade higher. This in turn creates much more foliage to shade the soil from the sun and reduce the rate of evaporation. One rule is to set your mower at the upper end of the mowing height which has been recommended. You should also note that different grasses require different mowing heights, for example:
-Kentucky Bluegrass, Tall Fescue — Set cutting height at 3 in.
-Bermudagrass — Set cutting heights at 1.5 in.
-St. Augustine — Set cutting height at 2.5 to 3 in.
-Fertilize Less. Slower growing lawns require less water, so cutting back on fertilizer can help reduce the amount of water your lawn needs to grow strong.
-Aerate Warm Season Lawns to increase water penetration.
