Show How Much Water For Your Lawn Three factors which determine determine deter- deter mine the amount of water to apply o af Ja lawn lawn n or a garden w mentioned m n nn A n d previously previous 1 y they are 1 How much water the soil will hold 2 how much the plants use each day or ore e each ch hour and 3 the weather CLAY SOILS hold more water than sandy soils Deep rooted plants have a larger soil reservoir reservoir reservoir res- res upon which to draw water than do shallow rooted crops Plants use more water on hot days than on cool days These three factors should be considered considered con- con I when we irrigate Most people dont don't reali realize ze the extent to which roots penetrate penetrate penetrate pene- pene into the soil We pull pulla a plant out of the ground and only the roots near the surface come with the plant the rest break off From this we conclude conclude conclude con con- clude that roots extend only a afew afew afew few inches under the surface of the soil solI While it is true that a large proportion of crop I roots are near the surface of the soil there are many roots i iw w which h i c hex extend ten d considerably deeper Alfalfa roots have been known to extend into the soil to a depth of 50 feet This is the e extreme ireme for practical irrigation irrIgation ir irrigation ir- ir purposes it has been found that rooting depths and thus water storage should be approximately a as s follows follow s Grasses two to four feet Grain three to five feet and corn cor n fi five ve to six feet NOW LETS LET'S consider the weather and we must also in in- in elude clude the age of the plant First consider lawn it would be amature a amature amature mature crop except for the first year after it is planted In the spring it would use about to inches per day During early summer it would require to inches per day and to inches per day during the hot part of the summer Suppose we have a lawn in ina ina ina a loam soil The rooting depth would be about three feet and the water holding capacity would be about inches of water per foot of depth or inches total In the early summer the average amount of water the crop would use would be about inches per day Thus inches divided by Inches per day Is 22 days I IRRIGATORS have found that it is best to irrigate when half the soil moisture is used Thus in the early summer the lawn should be Irrigated every ten days and about three inches of water should be applied In the hot summer Irrigation should take place about once a week This assumes that the roots are to a depth of three feet If H the lawn has not been Ir Irrigated irrigated irrigated ir- ir sufficiently in the past the roots wont won't be that deep The next step is to find out how to apply the right amount of water |