Sprinkler Systems
I had a lady customer come in last week to buy more chinch bug killer. She had already bought 3 bags a few weeks earlier but the grass was continuing to turn brown. I questioned whether the insecticide had been watered in well. She told me that the sprinkler runs almost every morning and that her husband was in India for weeks and she is really worried that her husband would return to a dead lawn. She confided that she recently came from Massachusetts and did not know about our grasses.
I offered to check her lawn out. Usually, I can't do this but events allowed it. I checked the lawn and there were no chinch bugs. The soil, though, was extremely dry. She told me that the sprinkler system was fairly new and that the sprinkler installer had set the stations to run.
I checked the controller and it was set to come on four times a week. Not necessarily wrong in 100 degree weather. Then I checked the time the zones were running. They were set for 5 minutes each. That is definitely not long enough. I then turned the system on and found out that they were rotary heads. Rotary heads need to be set for even longer time periods.
Every time I hear about the sprinkler system installer setting the watering times I am usually talking to someone who has a watering problem. I will not proclaim that this is always the case but I do have to say that it usually is.
In my lawn I water for 20 minutes per station with misting heads. If I had rotary heads I would water for about 45 minutes per station. if you do this and then set the frequency properly your grass will be irrigated correctly. The frequency will be determined by the weather. More frequently in the heat and less frequently in the cool weather.
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3/27/2009 10:17 AM
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