October 27, 2003 Weekly Water Saving Tip

Water running down the gutters many times is the result of poor irrigation practices. As long as the grass is green, many people feel they are doing a good job of irrigating. Never mind that they may also be growing a crop of mushrooms or algae in the process! Poor irrigation practices fall into three categories: 1) Poor scheduling; 2) Poor system design; and/or 3) Poor maintenance. Topics that we have talked about all summer long. Today’s focus will be on poor scheduling particularly since irrigation frequency is decreasing.

Irrigation for turf this week is every 7-10 days. A magazine article highlighted the fact most homeowners have poor irrigation scheduling. An average of nine cities surveyed showed that 42 percent of homeowners change their irrigation clocks zero to two times per year. With the coming of winter months it is important that we change our irrigation clocks. The duration of irrigation time remains the same, but the days between irrigations keep increasing as the days get shorter and the temperatures cool down. These are the triggers that tell us the plants need less water until such time that the system can be turned completely off.

The weekly water saving tip is provided to Washington County Water Conservancy District by Dr. Frank Williams, professor of the BYU Horticulture department. If you would like any more information please call me, Julie Breckenridge, at 673-3617.