In Castle Country we live on the dry side of the second driest state in the nation. I have been known to say on more than one occasion, “A wet year in Price is still a drought anywhere else.” Some municipalities have implemented irrigation restrictions, anywhere from no outside irrigation to specific days when irrigation is allowed.
I have been getting a lot of calls about lawns looking dead. Some have told me that they don’t want to water when it is raining for fear of incurring the wrath of their neighbors. One front yard I visited had mostly brown grass except the area around a downspout that shed most of the water from the roof of the house. This small 25 square foot area looked green and lush. This was a clear indication that this lawn did not have enough water to really green up this spring.
The warm spring temperatures from February – April, (well, April actually cooled down a little bit) encouraged the lawns to start growing earlier than expected. There just wasn’t the moisture the grass needed at that time.
Add to that the fact that late freezes can wreak havoc with irrigation systems. We want to keep them winterized until we need them, and charging your sprinkler system in early April is usually not a good management decision.
Now add to the equation the unseasonable amount of rain we had in May and so far in June. The question is, is it enough? Any rain to us seems like a lot of water. However, as I have investigated my yard and garden, the rain never reached below 3-4 inches. Not much in the grand scheme of things. Here are some things to consider:
• The amount of rainfall can be quite spotty. For example, heavy in Spring Glen and Carbonville, but very little south of Price
• Some of our storms have been gentle (my favorite) and some have been torrential. The thunderstorms generally hit the ground hard and run off into the washes and down the river. The only way to get some benefit out of torrential thunderstorms is to have some way to slow the runoff. In this respect lawns are a great benefit, they slow the runoff.
The best way to water your lawn is to give it a good drink, but not too often. A healthy turf will have an effective root zone of about 12 inches. So that is the water “bank account” with which we are dealing. In Castle Country 12 inches of out typical soil will hold two inches of water, or a little more. When the water “bank account” is full (not saturated) there are two inches of water available to the lawn. Since we always want to work on the top half of the “bank account” we want to replace the used water before we get to only one inch available.
This means we want to put down .75 inch of water when that much has been used. With typical sunny June weather that is about 5 – 6 days. A hot, windy June day may be more like four days. A cloudy, cool June day could be closer to seven days. So I run my system however long it takes to irrigate .75 inches. If your root depth is less than 12 inches then you need to adjust the amount and frequency of you irrigation. The grass won’t require less water, you will need to water a little less a little more frequently.
When it rains there are two ways to adjust for the rain:
• Delay your irrigation by 1 day for every .2 inch of precipitation
• Decrease the length of irrigation so the overall irrigation amount is not exceeded
If you are on specific watering days then you would adjust the amount. But if you can adjust the days you water that is the best option. The above adjustments require you to keep track of the rainfall at your location. Rain gages are cheap. Be sure to mount it at an appropriate site. Of course, this requires management of your sprinkler system; don’t just turn it on in the spring and turn it off in the fall. Let’s always be conservation minded.
If you live in Carbon County and want more information on your specific sprinkler system contact the USU Extension Office (435-636-3233) to schedule a water check. A trained intern will run your system and determine the precipitation rate and the distribution uniformity and then give watering schedule recommendations.
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