Do You Want to Resuscitate a Stressed Lawn that Looks Dead?

The title may sound dramatic. But to your lawn care customers, their yards look dead during a drought.

Depending on where you live, area municipalities may have enacted water restrictions, making it harder for cool season grasses to look green and lush.

So, what do you do when you have angry customers calling you, wondering why their lawns are looking dry and dead?

What is Drought Stress?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of assuring your customers that if they have cool season grasses, they may experience their turfgrass going into dormancy.

How can you help your clients understand drought-stress and cool season lawns? Here are six suggestions to get you started:

Starting in the spring, educate your commercial and residential clients about cool season grasses and how using the correct fertilizers in spring will keep their yards greener longer into the summer.
Remind your customers that you’ll be mowing higher rather than lower. Teach your clients that it’s crucial to allow turfgrass roots to grow deep down in the soil—and they can do that when you only take the top third off the grass plant.
Encourage your commercial and residential clients to invest in an in-ground irrigation system. If you sell and maintain lawn sprinkler systems, you can upsell your services. Again, tell your clients while it’s a significant investment upfront, they’re reaping the rewards down the line. Plus, it’ll keep their lawns green longer into a heatwave.
If your customers don’t want to invest in an outdoor sprinkler system, encourage them to put down soaker hoses to give their yard 1” – 2” of water per week or follow any water restrictions. Soaker hoses will emit water slowly into the soil.
Ensure that you put down pre-emergent weed control in early spring to prevent grassy weeds from growing through dormant turf in the middle of summer.
Reassure your clients during a drought that their lawns are dormant and will green up when the temperatures go down and it starts to rain again.

How to Keep Grass Alive During the Dog Days of Summer

As a turf manager, you can use professional lawn care products that help your customers’ lawns stay alive during the dry, hot summer days of July and August.

It all starts in the soil and well before the turf goes into drought stress.

At LebanonTurf, our ROOT BioPak Plus 3-0-20 contains water-soluble micronutrients and biostimulant treatment with NPK of 3-0-20.

Not only can you use ROOT BioPak Plus on all of your customers’ lawns, but you can also apply it to their landscape plants, trees, and shrubs to keep them hardy during extreme heat and drought.

ROOTS BioPak Plus is an all mineral fertilizer with nutrients that are immediately available to the plant. For example, potassium sulfate provides instantaneous nutrition with the bonus of sulfur.

You also get six micronutrients per package: 7% Fe, .2% Mn, 1.5% Mg, Zn, S, and B. And, ROOTS BioPak Plus contains beneficial rhizosphere bacteria, kelp meal, and humic acids to improve soil health.

Biostimulants and Humic Acids to the Rescue

Why are biostimulants and humic acids essential to drought-stress recovery in home lawns and landscapes?

Biostimulants inoculate (or infuse) the soil to wake it up after heat stress and soil compaction. The ground becomes healthier, allowing for a vibrant ecosystem that holds nutrients and moisture longer.

Healthy ecosystems also keep the soil aerated and encourage plant root growth to find those stores of moisture and nutrition deep underground—especially during a prolonged period of no rain and high temperatures.

Biostimulants protect your customers’ turfgrass, landscaping plants, trees, and shrubs from heat stress.

Humic acids also called humates, work to improve the soil’s health and vitality. Humates provide the following 15 benefits to plants and the earth that houses them:

Improves soil structure
Increases water-holding capacity for a longer time
Chemically changes the soil
Improves plants’ nutrient uptake
Regulates the soil’s pH
Increases root growth, respiration, and formation to improve nutrient uptake
Increases the plant’s natural resistance against environmental stress—including drought-stress
Stimulates and increases turf’s natural enzyme production
Accelerates cell division and boosts cell development in the root system
Promotes the grasses’ chlorophyll, sugar, and amino acid development
Stimulates beneficial microorganisms growth and spread
Increases vitamin and mineral content in the turf.

You can read more about the benefits of biostimulants, humates, and our other ROOT products on our website.

Learn more: Biostimulants in the Turf World

Call Your LebanonTurf Distributor Today

If you’re ready to use a lawn care product that’s good for the soil as well as the plants aboveground during a drought, then you need our ROOT BioPak Plus 3-0-20.

Buy our LebanonTurf products today from your local distributor.

Source:

Extension.sdstate.edu, Dealing with Drought Stressed Lawns.