Drought Stress (The not so slow death of your lawn)

Looking back at the spring thus far, rain fall has been so low our plants and lawns are showing signs of drought stress.

Since yesterday the rains have departed, the sun has returned – right along with a great deal of high winds and low humidity (not to mention the smoke and ash).

As we are travelling around treating lawns, it is becoming apparent that the lawns are quickly going into drought stress. Drought stress? Yes, drought stress.

Drought stress is a response the turfgrass plants have to lack of available water in the soil.

When we have high temperatures and windy conditions , it doesn’t take any time at all to dry out the top few inches of soil.

But Mother Nature is an absolutist and doesn’t ask for our opinion. If the soil dries out, plants go into stress.

How can you tell if your lawn is going into drought stress?

The first signs are a purplish tint to the otherwise green color to the lawn, usually in an area that is exposed to full sun. If you walk across these areas, you will also notice that the grass that you stepped on will not readily return to its upright stance. This is known as lack of turgidity – the plant is not completely full of water.  In St Augustine lawns the blades of grass curl up.  This is a selfpreservation method, the plant is trying to keep the stems and roots alive byslowing the loss of water from the exposed parts of the plant.  If the blades are past this stage and turning tan, you must apply more water to keep it alive.

Upon noticing areas with these signs, you can take a penknife and cut into the soil. If the soil is light in color and does not bind together then it is apparent that the soil has dried out. You can take another sample in an area that is still green and/or in the shade and compare the two samples.

What can you do?

First, if you have an automatic irrigation system, run the system through manually and observe that each one of the heads is intact and rotating properly. Both lawn care and irrigation companies are besieged by phone calls in the late spring when temperatures go up and rainfall goes down, prompted by defective sprinkler heads or systems that are simply turned off.

Second, if the system is operating properly, you may wish to give the areas that are going into stress more time on your irrigation controller. For example, if it is currently getting 10 minutes of water, try going to 20 minutes, give it a few days and observe the results.  If your controller has a Percentage =/- setting just increase the percent to 150%.  This will automatically increase the time on each zone by 50%.  When we get regular rain fall just adjust it back to !00%

And remember the rule of thumb – it is better to water less frequently and more deeply than it is to water more frequently. Grass plants do actually react to how much water they receive as well as when and how often it is applied. And it really is a rule of thumb. Each and every lawn is unique, indeed there are often many lawns within a single lawn. Some areas use more water than others. You really need to identify these areas and customize your approach. That is where the science of turfgrass management yields to the art of turfgrass management.

Another thing you can do (and should be doing regardless of conditions) is to raise your mowing height to the highest setting that you and your lawn can tolerate. Leave the short grass to the golf course superintendents – ironically, they would like to be able to cut everything at the height that we recommend you cut at.

As always if we can be of assistance call 904.724.9114 or click info@turfmastersjax.com.  It’s your landscape, but its our passion.