During a drought, it’s important to be mindful of how much water is actually making it to your soil and grassroots. When soil is super dry, there’s a higher likelihood of water runoff. Our licensed irrigator, Ryean Colby TXLI24762, recommends the cycle & soak method to fully optimize your watering system.
Water your lawn in three or four shorter cycles until you've reached over 1" of water per week.
Shorter cycles allow the water to soak into the soil a little at a time, avoiding run off. Not only will you incrementally increase depth of the water’s reach, you’ll also promote deeper roots and healthier plants.
As one zone is running, the water in the previous zone is soaking deeper into the soil. To calculate your watering time, simply take the total watering time for each zone and divide it into three or four cycles.
Here’s How it Can Look For a Typical Lawn:
- Spray nozzles take around 40 minutes to water over an inch so, run them 4x in 10-minute intervals
- MP Rotor, Drip, and Rotor heads typically take at least 2 hours to water over an inch, so run them 4x in 30-minute intervals
- Lawns on an incline can have additional runoff from an average lawn, so having four shorter intervals helps ensure water absorption into the clay
- Optimizing your controller’s programming for the current season is a valuable part of our Irrigation Seasonal Check-up Program now just $90 a visit for 4 seasonal visits (up to 8 stations)
