As green-industry professionals, you should be able to read a landscape and listen to what it is telling you. We can see visual signs of under- and overwatering. Underwatered landscapes with insufficient soil moisture storage capacity could cause irreparable damage to the plant. The industry term is “permanent wilting point.” When a plant reaches this point of no return it will begin to wilt and turn brown and possibly die.

 

 

We should never let our landscapes get to the permanent wilting point. So, to avoid this condition, we often overwater our landscape by two to three times the actual amount needed to be sure our plants will never wilt. This is a bad habit and one we should learn to break as soon as possible. At one time, we considered water a non-threatened resource, but after extreme amounts of development we need to begin to conserve as much as possible. Irrigation maintenance companies will possibly visit five or more sites in a day. Each site presents an opportunity to sell your new product: water conservation. This product not only saves our natural resources but also it saves your customer money.
Just as we can see the signs of an underwatered landscape, we also should be able to point out the signs of an overwatered landscape. The usual suspects are dollar weed and root rot. Sometimes we can see fungus growing on mulch or on areas of bare soil.

Just as underwatered landscape is bad for business so is an overwatered landscape. The health and beauty of a plant can be stunted by overwatered conditions. It is our responsibility as the landscape or irrigation professional to educate our client on how we can save the landscape and their money by implementing a proper irrigation schedule. And, if possible, use upgrades or a retrofit project to water the landscape more efficiently.

 

Show your customer you really care about their landscape and their pocketbook through:
• Routine maintenance — Turn on and check the irrigation system on a routine basis. Remember to check the adjustment of all sprinkler heads.
• Creation of hydrozones in the landscape — Group plants with like water requirements in like microclimates on the same irrigation zone.
• Improving soil conditions — Conducting a soil test could save you time when determining the cause of multiple problems in a landscape. Loamy soils will encourage deep root growth and the weekly water requirement for plants will lower as the plant roots develop and reach deeper into the soil. Tilling in soil amendments also can help the existing soil conditions.
• Installing a rain sensor or rain shut-off device — As of 2009, the Florida State Statutes require all new and existing automatic irrigation systems have a rain shut-off device installed.
• Use of new irrigation control technology — Every day, the irrigation industry is developing products to conserve water. In the past few years, soil moisture sensor controllers and automatically adjusted evapotranspiration (ET) controllers have become popular. The soil moisture sensor controller takes a measurement of the moisture level in the soil and will activate or bypass irrigations on an as needed basis. The ET controller automatically adjusts the watering time based on the calculated ET rate of the previous day. You can create a monthly watering schedule based on the monthly ET rate.

 

ET rates for all areas of Florida can be found at http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu/.