Tips for home lawns in drought
what will happen in the next few months. This would be a great time to be wrong and us to have a wet winter and spring. Today, I am going to center more on lawns and give tips for the fall and then what we may see next spring. I will be sharing information gathered from a webinar with Dr. Clint Waltz, UGA Turfgrass Specialist.
I have been a county agent for 22 years. I grew up in the area and I have never seen the area so dry. There are stock ponds and lakes that I have never seen go dry that are well on their way. Our river levels are low, too. Dr. Waltz started by reminding folks that our current problems are just not drought, but the heat that we are seeing currently. If you remember, we had incredible rainfall last December, but around March, we turned dry. The summer and fall has been tough for our lawns. The bulk of the information will be on our warm season grasses and I will share information on our cool season grasses at the end.
Our big concern is, what will our warm season grasses do next spring? Just to be clear, our warm season grasses are our bermuda, zoysia and centipede lawns. An example of a cool season will be fescue. Typically, this time of year, the warm season grasses are making and storing carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are important to help bring these grasses out of dormancy next spring.
Carbohydrates will also help the warm season grasses recover from stresses including disease and insect pressure. Our limiting factor in this carbohydrate production is lack of rainfall. Our current drought situation is statewide, but if you look at drought monitors, our corner of the state is as bad as anywhere. What can you do now? To be honest, not a whole lot, according to Waltz. He added that we really need rainfall. The good news is that this weather pattern will not last forever and it will rain. We just do not know when it will rain regularly again.
First, for a few “do not’s” on the warm season grasses:
You do not want to aerate a warm season lawn now. We do not want to open that ground up in this weather situation. Also, do not fertilize in this current pattern according to Waltz. I know most folks have not mowed their lawns in a while, but if you are, do not lower mowing heights. If you are willing to irrigate, it could help. Typically, we are not irrigating warm seasons this time of year. Until, we get a good frost, you may be able to apply about a .50 inch of irrigation per week. This irrigation may help us save some of the carbohydrates that will be needed next spring. I will add that this typically is the time that people will winterize their sprinkler systems.
Dr. Waltz says this may be a year to hold off and use the systems as long as the weather is like it is. You will run the risk of some freeze damage to your system such as cracking of sprinkler heads so the longer you wait the more risk. That is your decision as the owner. You do need to be mindful of best management practices in regards to irrigation. We are suggesting to irrigate between the hours of 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. Locally, you need to keep in mind that you are also limited by your address number. I checked and currently, if you have an odd address number, you can irrigate on Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday. Even or no number addresses can irrigate on Monday, Wednesday or Saturday. I suggest calling your water provider for confirmation.
Our main cool season grass for lawns is fescue. Dr. Waltz says typically, we are too late to plant fescue at this time, but you can still can seed due to this current weather. Again, the elephant in the room is no rainfall. You will have to irrigate to get the seed to germinate and then also keep watering to get a root system to develop.
Going back to our warm seasons grasses, be prepared for some transition green up issues. We may have some dead areas in our lawns next spring and if we are getting good rainfall, we may have to work to get as much green growth next summer as possible. I will add that if we stay in drought this winter, we may need to irrigate our warm season lawns in winter. This could be .50 inch of water every two weeks in absence of rainfall.
For more information, contact UGA ExtensionGordon County or email gbowman@uga.edu.