Lawn watering

[Joel B.]

Our city (Minneapolis area) is on an odd-even watering schedule which means I can water either every other day or every fourth day. "They" say an inch of water per week is recommended so if I water every other day that would mean roughly a quarter inch of water each time which is not good for the grass. So that leads me to watering heavily every fourth day but during hot weather that sure seems like a long time between waterings.

What do the experts recommend?

Thank you for any advice,

Joel B.

[MarcSmith]

a well maintained yard should be able to go 4 days after an inch of water....I would venture to say that a well maintained lawn could proably go 7-8 days bewteen watering if your getting 1" each time...

i agree that the 1/4" waterings are pretty useless....

[Drew Gemma]

first mow at 3.5 to 4 inches then only mow when it is cool out this will save you tons of water. then I would water twice a week long periods.

[Joel B.]

My system would have to run most of the day to get an inch. How does 1/2" every 4 days sound? Would 1/2" every other day be too much?

Thank you.

[MarcSmith]

you could run 1/2 of your system one day and the other half two days later still falling with the 1" every four days guideline...

I have several timers that i either have to start watering late in the day for it get through an entire cycle, or break up the cycles, like turf one day, and shurbs the next, ect... or front back... sprays, rotors...

[PurpHaze]

Water deeply and infrequently. It will all depend on your soil and slope as to how much penetration the watering will get and how much runoff might occur. In sandy loam soil an inch of water will penetrate 12-14" and establish a deep root zone. If you do choose to split up your watering you may be able to loop the program if your controller is designed for this. Looping will allow zones to be watered 3-4 times in one program and lay down enough water each time just before runoff occurs.

[MarcSmith]

purp is talking about a using a multi program controller. with some older analog style clocks you may not be able to do this.... But most of the newer digital clocks have multiple programs. FWIW..

[Ground Master]

type of turf?
soil type?
root zone depth? (best guess?)

[Joel B.]

type of turf?
soil type?
root zone depth? (best guess?)

Bluegrass
Clay
No idea

[MarcSmith]

since its clay, you'll definitlyhave to stagger your run times, I don;t think there is any way to get 1" of water into clay in one application without experienceing some run-off

[jerryrwm]

Our city (Minneapolis area) is on an odd-even watering schedule which means I can water either every other day or every fourth day. "They" say an inch of water per week is recommended so if I water every other day that would mean roughly a quarter inch of water each time which is not good for the grass. So that leads me to watering heavily every fourth day but during hot weather that sure seems like a long time between waterings.

What do the experts recommend?

Thank you for any advice,

Joel B.

Who are "They" and what makes them so sure that you need 1" per week?

Water as you need to maintain the turf at a level of lushness and green that satisfies you. That may be less than 1" and it may be more.

You can manipulate the times that you run the system, during the water window that you have. Also if you don't know the precipitation rate of the sprinklers, (each zone may be different as are the rates for rotors and sprays) then you won't be able to set up the time to run. One of those useful pieces of information.

[PurpHaze]

"They" is probably the city (Minneapolis area) who probably got the info from an ag/turf watering chart taking into effect the type of grass coefficient multiplier factor for a given time of year. :drinkup:

[PurpHaze]

Bluegrass
Clay
No idea

higher watering requirements
slower infiltration
pot hole to check

:)

[Ground Master]

joel, spring and fall every 4th day
summer every other day

An awesome book on this subject is the certified landscape irrigation auditor book from irrigation.org

or you could always install an et based controller

[Joel B.]

Thanks for all the info. What would be considered a "deep watering", 1/2", 3/4", 1", more..?

Thanks

Joel B.

[bicmudpuppy]

Our city (Minneapolis area) is on an odd-even watering schedule which means I can water either every other day or every fourth day. "They" say an inch of water per week is recommended so if I water every other day that would mean roughly a quarter inch of water each time which is not good for the grass. So that leads me to watering heavily every fourth day but during hot weather that sure seems like a long time between waterings.

What do the experts recommend?

Thank you for any advice,

Joel B.
I am real glad we haven't seen water rationing in a very long time. Once it gets "hot" I recomend 1/2" of water every 3 days. If you do that, here in KS, during the worst part of summer, you will still mow grass every week. In your situation, 1/2" every fourth day would be my recomendation with the realization that the turf may try and go dormant if the summer conditions become severe. If that happens, I LIKE once per week, but in your situation would make a decision between every fourth day and every eight days. Every eight days should keep dormant grass alive and you can quit mowing. One other PITA with water rationing........don't forget that depending on your odd or even situation you end up with your schedule being skewed at the end of July and August for day 31.
Your controller model will make part of this decision for you unless you like manually setting things the night before.

Also, since we are dealing with Clay soil, like Purp mentioned, spliting your run time up and using multiple starts helps. If you have a mechanical, you can still utilize multiple starts (pull two pins). With a mech controller, you just have to make sure the controller is finished before it hits the second start pin. On dense clay that is reasonably flat, I like to limit the run time to 1/4" with a 30 min or more rest before it runs again. On slopes, I will use 3 or 4 start times to get the 1/2" target precip. A Mechanical controller usually has two weeks for the day cycle dial. Set it to run every 4 days and remember to cycle it forward to the right point every so often ( after day 12, you have to skip forward or back depending on your view)