Scheduling Information
Sprinkler Guidelines Courtesy of Austin Lawn and Sprinkler Association
Scheduling Information
Scheduling your sprinkler system can be fairly simple once you know how much water the system will apply, and in what amount of time.
Also important is whether the landscape turf or plant material is established or newly planted / seeded. Established plants typically will respond better to longer, deep watering, where newly planted / seeded areas will need more frequent light watering.
The total daily watering requirement does not have to be applied at one time. Water can be applied in short or long cycles. Total duration and total application is more important than the individual cycles. If you are watering areas that have heavy slopes, or are prone to run-off the system can be set to apply and then soak by setting multiple start times with shorter cycles. Just remember that if you spread out the cycles too far, the first application may partially evaporate before being allowed to soak in, so try to run the cycles as close together as possible.
Here in the Austin area, we deal with an unfriendly foe called ROCK. When scheduling your system note how much and the quality of soil. Rock will not absorb water as well as good quality loam will. Rocky soils will generally dry out much sooner as well as the rock will absorb the suns energy and cause the surrounding soil to heat up, and dry out sooner. Soil needs to be factored in when scheduling your system.
How Often To Water Your Lawn In Austin, Texas?
As a precursor, please remember we are giving these times and guidelines as an estimate. No two systems are exactly the same, so the general guidelines we are giving here may not necessarily fit your system. We can evaluate your system and give a better answer to some of the questions by doing an on-site system inspection.
Most turf grasses will need about an inch and a half of water per week to look good. No two people like their lawn to look the same, so personal preference will come into play as well. Do you expect your lawn to look like a golf course, or is some browning and stress OK? Calculating the precipitation rate or application rate is the only way to know how long the system must run to apply a specific amount of water.
There are ways that a sprinkler system’s exact application rate can be calculated, but for most applications, a general estimate is that rotary type heads will apply water at a rate of .5” per hour and Spray type heads will apply water at a rate of about 1.2” per hour. That means to achieve a total application of .5” that rotor head would need to run for one hour, and the spray heads would need to run for twenty five minutes. Local news stations will tell you how much watering to do during the peak summer months, and these can be used as guidelines. We can also help you identify which stations are rotors, sprays, and provide a general guideline of application rates for scheduling.
Sprinkler systems are typically divided into stations, watering different areas independently. This allows the system to water different areas for different amounts of time. Hopefully your system was divided correctly into stations according to plant type, and sunny, shady areas etc. If your system is not divided correctly in that manner, we can help make whatever changes may be needed.
