No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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southern-ct-4
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No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by southern-ct-4 » May 19th, 2021, 3:26 pm

I'm mostly just venting here as I'm so far behind this year's lawn care (though thankfully I got Dimension down on 3/27).

Between ongoing work being done at my house (and not wanting people tracking stuff in, even though we make them take shoes off), and no rain of any substantial amount in the past several weeks (aside from one occurrence but we were having a lot of workers the next day so I still didn't want to put anything down), I have not been able to use anything since the Dimension.

Last year by this time (between 4/23 and 5/19) I had put down Mag i Cal, preventative fungicide, moss out and grub ex (even though I think june is when I should have put grub ex down?), and my first milo was on 5/22.

I know I can put down milo even if there won't be substantial rain, but for all the other products I need/want to water them in thoroughly as I have kids and don't want to worry about products sitting on the lawn (even with Milo I normally always put it down before rain).

In any case, can someone please send some rain to Southern CT?

Thank you.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by MorpheusPA » May 19th, 2021, 3:42 pm

As Elsa sang, "Let it go, let it go..." :-)

You can certainly drag hoses around the lawn. For things that need watering in, a quarter inch is more than enough for the most part. I'm in that state as far as my grub killer goes.

While I have irrigation, I simply don't use it. But I'll probably have to.

southern-ct-4
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by southern-ct-4 » May 19th, 2021, 3:46 pm

Thanks. Normally in July/August I setup my homemade/ugly irrigation system (4 prong wifi hose timer in the front, another 2 in the back), but I'd rather not set that up yet (though maybe I should). Otherwise yeah, I could drag around a couple of hoses and do it that way.

I have 20k square feet so it's a bit tough though.

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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by Turk » May 19th, 2021, 4:22 pm

Send some rain my way. Thankfully mostly only the weeds have suffered, but there are areas showing stress (along the property edge where the trees next to the road are sucking the soil dry), hopefully that section will recover as it was looking pretty sweet 6 weeks ago.

I'm thinking about giving Mother Nature another week before I consider pulling out the hoses. Watering 24k square feet is not fun.

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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by bpgreen » May 20th, 2021, 2:49 am

If you were in the intermountain west, I could give you a list of seeds and providers of those seeds that you could use to have a "lawn" with 20-30 inches of precipitation per year.

My irrigation controller broke last year. I decided against getting it fixed. Surprisingly, a fair amount of kbg and tall fescue (I won't say tttf, because it's mostly k31) survived.

I'm no help. Just chiming in to let you know that things could be worse. Although, if I'm being honest, I could pay to fix my controller and I could l pay to water the lawn.


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MorpheusPA
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by MorpheusPA » May 20th, 2021, 3:55 pm

Exactly. I don't irrigate. The lawn still looks fine. Although if I sent a photo, you'd probably not be impressed right now. It's gray and going dormant in spots already. We hit 96 degrees yesterday.

I'm irrigating two spots; I removed a lilac from a swale point that always drowns out and has to be cut back or re-daughtered from the main plant and would like that hole to close. The second is the grass area around the rose that's getting irrigated.

Really, the third is the halo of grass around the gardens that are being watered. The gardens aren't established yet and can't be left to nature. The roots are only an inch deep.

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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by fun4me2 » May 21st, 2021, 7:14 am

and here I thought the next 3 day forecast of t-storms would be a good time to maybe drop my fertilizer...
that would be a negative :nea:
the temps are expected to be 89-90 degrees :banghead:

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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by gordon » May 21st, 2021, 2:22 pm

Looks like rain in the Lehigh Valley for Memorial Day weekend...Hope to drop my fertilizer then if its not blazing hot...

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MorpheusPA
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by MorpheusPA » May 21st, 2021, 2:25 pm

gordon wrote:
May 21st, 2021, 2:22 pm
Looks like rain in the Lehigh Valley for Memorial Day weekend...Hope to drop my fertilizer then if its not blazing hot...
Does it? I'm seeing a 20% chance of showers for Sunday/Monday over here. They've put the little showers sign on the day, but I consider that overly hopeful.

southern-ct-4
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by southern-ct-4 » May 21st, 2021, 2:27 pm

It's just never going to rain again :(

Image

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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by gordon » May 21st, 2021, 2:37 pm

Does it? I'm seeing a 20% chance of showers for Sunday/Monday over here. They've put the little showers sign on the day, but I consider that overly hopeful.
[/quote]

I guess i was hopeful for something. 30%-40% next Friday and Saturday, scattered Tstorms next Sunday, 30%.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by MorpheusPA » May 21st, 2021, 4:08 pm

Guess it depends on which forecaster you use. :-) I see 39% for next Friday using Weather.com's ten day forecaster. 20% using a European model.

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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by Green » May 21st, 2021, 9:57 pm

Morpheus hinted toward deficit irrigation (my definition of that includes putting down something, wgatever you can, even if it's less than a half inch). In dry conditions, especially if you have Tall Fescue, it's definitely helpful and preferable to no irrigation. And dry it is indeed...at least that keeps some of the major diseases at bay. I will, be watering my low input area nomix starting tomorrow, and am lucky if I can get 1/3 inch out of the Dramm Oscillating sprinkler in a timely fashion...about 5 hours per area. The area has a good amount of Tall and Fine Fescues in it which do respond well to deficit irrigation, so it will appreciate any water. The KBG in the mix may not appreciate it as much, as it generally likes a deeper soaking.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by MorpheusPA » May 21st, 2021, 11:01 pm

Deficit irrigation is fine for KBG as well; 1/4" a month or so will keep dormant grass alive. It won't bring it back, but it'll keep the roots alive indefinitely. Usually we get enough in thunderstorms or incidental showers that this isn't a problem.

Green
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Re: No rain, no irrigation, what to do?

Post by Green » May 22nd, 2021, 1:07 am

Morph: thanks for mentioning that. I like deficit irrigation on mixed lawns because it keeps the TTTF green and fairly happy. But I don't allow it to build such a deficit as to cause the KBG to go dormant brown. Unfortunately the tradeoff among the grass types means that if you aren't using a mix, you have to pick from robust dormancy mechanism (drought survival) coupled with lower drought avoidance (in other words KBG) versus relatively poor dormancy (incomplete dormancy) coupled with excellent drought avoidance (staying green longer)...which is what TTTF does. I know I'm oversimplifying it and there many cultivars and even other species, but that's essentially the tradeoff, as the drought avoidance and tolerance are pretty mutually exclusive. So, my solution in the most basic sense is a KBG/TTTF mix to get some of each trait in the lawn, and deficit irrigation in the less prime areas. Of course, a mix has its tradeoffs, too.

I read about Mediterranean Summer-dormant Tall Fescue species. It has a great dormancy mechanism like KBG. But no one is breeding it for turf, because it apparently goes brown as readily as fine fescue does in full sun, if not more readily. Now, if only they could interbreed it with Continental TTTF and successfully get both traits in the same plant...

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