Rising Temps Forecast new seedlings

[mdxers]

Any advice on my new emerging KBG seedlings and upcoming high 90's temps forecast? They are starting to sprout now and we are set to receive about four days of 95-97 temps?

[MorpheusPA]

You'll be fine. Keep watering three times daily and make sure the ground stays moist. This happened during my sprout and it's not a big deal--sprout will stall because temperatures are too high, but it'll resume as soon as the weather breaks again.

Anything that sprouted will continue to develop normally. Actually, quite quickly due to the high temperatures. Plants, being cold-blooded critters, follow the air and ground temperature and take their metabolic speed from that and available energy. It's August. Available energy is quite high. And now thermal energy is quite high.

Overall, this is a pretty neutral and normal phase. Keep watering and enjoy.

[PSU4ME]

I always “feel” august is too early to do plantings because it’s still so hot and dry. Granted the night temps are better a dew starts to become present but I like to do new stuff in September......heck I saw people plant October 10th and they still got grass but I would t go that far. Seed down at Labor Day works well for my situation.

But if you water decent in the morning and crop dust with water mid and late day you’ll push them through.

[andy10917]

Between my own renovations, renovations at my sons' lawns, and assisting/guiding friends renovations, etc I'm probably close to 20 renovations that I've seen. I use a "measuring stick" of the quality of the results of a renovation as the health and density of a renovation at the following Memorial Day. By far, those that were seeded just at/near August 15th did the best if they were properly watered (irrigation system or hoses) and those that were seeded September 15th or later did the worst. The August 15th ones also had the fewest complications (they had time to do Pre-M in the season, no struggles with leaf cleanup in the Fall, ability to apply herbicides for weed control, etc). Yes, I've seen renovations and reseedings done in early October too - but those that succeeded were either Perennial Ryegrass or Northern-Mix blends, and next Spring those that were Northern Mix blends exhibited a very low amount of KBG in them.

With some form of watering, I have never seen high air temperatures affect germination or early growth. One renovation was even done at July 10th and did well, although the owner of it really got tired of humping hoses around until September 15th.

While later seeding can succeed, my observations are that each week later than around now (August 22) for seed-down ups the odds that the results are poorer when measured at next Memorial Day. As the amount of time for the grass to mature before the end-of-season shortens, the quality of the end-result goes down too. Also, as people tried techniques like using fertilizer right after germination or earlier-than recommended Pre-M applications to play catch-up, the results were poorer too.

[MorpheusPA]

Mine was July 30th due to a real snag in my schedule. So, about 2 weeks early and during, of course, one of the worst heat waves in history at that time (we've since shattered that record repeatedly, of course, several times) and a period of absolutely no rainfall.

It went fine. Germination was quite slow at first due to really, really hot temperatures at the soil/air interface (although it did still start at day 5 or so) but, as soon as those fell into optimal range, it took off like gangbusters and I got the entire warm late summer sunny period for growth.

By October, just about the time we had the laggards saying, "I don't care, I'm going to seed anyway!" I had an established, if young, lawn that was already starting to spread and prep for winter.

Which it kind of ignored, actually, and barely browned out. I was thrilled. So my observation was similar and experiences, over the years, are similar. I'm a little more loosey-goosey about feeding at seed-down (starter with Mesotrione might be OK sometimes and organics I never object to), but I tend to agree.

[KBGkicksazz]

I don’t know Nebraska weather well enough but one trick if your weather does tempt you to delay is you can extend the germination past the frost dates by watering a night to stop the frost from forming.

If you are at elevation and can get September snow that’s a different beast.

If I still had 95+ at this point I’d likely wait until the next drop in temp. The issue I’ve had with such high temps is keeping the soil moist during those stretches as the water evaporated so quickly.

Every day after Sept 1 is when it’s get more and more problematic with immature grass going into winter.

[mdxers]

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep the sprinklers going. Looks like we'll get more seasonal this Friday. Back into the mid 80's.