Soil Water Management: Timing, Amount, and Syringing

Fifteen years ago, it was rare to use a soil moisture meter. Today, it seems that almost every turfgrass manager has some idea of the soil moisture content. In this presentation, I show that daily irrigation can use less water than infrequent irrigation, while maintaining a lower soil moisture content than deep and infrequent irrigation. I explain how soil moisture meters can be used to prove that, how they can be used to measure the real evapotranspiration rate, and why syringing turf for the purpose of cooling the surface is a waste of time, water, and energy.

Transcript

1. Soil Water Management: Timing, Amount, and Syringing Micah Woods Chief Scientist Asian Turfgrass Center www.asianturfgrass.com 14 January 2016 Northern Green Expo Minneapolis, Minnesota
2. When I was a superintendent ...
3. Irrigation: deep and infrequent
4. ATC research facility, 2008
5. I learned something from Doug Soldat
6. ATC research facility, 2009
7. I was surprised
8. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
9. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
10. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
11. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
12. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
13. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
14. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
15. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
16. 0 5 10 15 20 25 09-Aug 19-Aug 29-Aug Soil VWC %
17. The chart
18. 0.0 0.1 0.2 Jan 2015 Apr 2015 Jul 2015 Oct 2015 Jan 2016 Potential ET (ETo ), inches Minneapolis, 2015
19. 0 2 4 0 2 4 ETc (mm/day) Loss am to pm (VWC) 11 greens in Japan
20. We ing agents “It is o en stated that some we ing agents move water rapidly through the root zone while other products retain considerable moisture near the surface, but the data to substantiate such claims is limited.” Karcher and Richardson, GCM Dec 2014: We ing agents improve root-zone moisture distribution
21. Syringing for the purpose of cooling turf I wouldn’t do it today.