Automatic sprinklers must be turned off to avoid lawn disease

By R. Lewis

Now entering the middle of Dec. and quickly approaching Christmas and the New Year holidays, it appears that we have finally moved into a long period of more normal weather for the lower Laguna Madre region.  The push of cold air and the nearly ten days of drizzle and light rain have finally moved out and warmer more comfortable days are back for a while.  The light rain over such a long period of time gave us some good soil soaking, totaling over three inches over most areas and that is always good for us in what has been such a long period of drought through most of the entire year of 2022.  The rainy period we just experienced is a good thing, but for many lawns, the constant moisture and cool temperatures have resulted in the emergence of the unsightly “Brown Patch Lawn Disease” in many local lawns.
Finally getting back to work after the rainy days, I drive into an area of the golf course in Laguna Vista last Monday morning and see that water is running along the curbs on each side of the street from many sprinkler systems that had just run. Honestly, I was just shocked that these sprinklers had just run given the fact that there was no reason at all – given the long rainy period we had just endured.
Driving further past many street drains with irrigation water flowing into, I felt disheartened seeing this blatant waste of water.  The next thing I started to notice was the stand out signs of “Brown Patch Disease” in many of these lawns, of which I snapped some pictures of.  These areas were not there before the rainy period started, but obviously these sprinkler systems ran during the rainy time, and as a result, the unsightly fungus has shown up.
With our soils so saturated from rainfall, all of the automatic sprinkler systems should be on “OFF” as there is no reason to apply irrigation water to any established lawn for several weeks to come. If we continue with intermittent rain showers every two to three weeks, we can leave the irrigation controller on “OFF” until springtime.

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