The pertinent question is "how much water did you keep?" not "how much water did you get?"

If your ground is rock hard and nearly all of the water flows off the lawn somewhere else then it didn't do much good. Even worse, if your yard has bare spots and the topsoil erodes while all the water flows off the lawn somewhere else.

On the agricultural side, there is interesting research that shows that as soil organic matter is increased then the water holding capacity increases. Some studies show increasing organic content 1% increases water holding capacity 1%. More water being held in the soil means whatever the crop (e.g. grass) can better weather a drought. As a bonus, as you increase organic matter you'll:

attract more beneficial earthworms which will poop out more organic matter and decrease soil compaction.

adjust the soil pH closer to the ideal 6.5 to 7.0 range where nutrient availability increases. You can put all the nutrients you want on a soil pH of 4.5 but very little will be available to the plants.


How do you increase soil organic content for lawns:

mulch or side discharge clippings instead of bagging. They'll decompose down to become organic matter.

instead of spreading a synthetic high nitrogen fertilizer, spread an organic fertilizer. For example, instead of spreading 28 lbs of 19-4-10 synthetic slow release fertilizer on my lawn I'm spreading 88 lbs of 6-2-4 organic slow release fertilizer. I'm adding approx 70 lbs of organic matter per application plus as far as the macronutrients I'm getting 5.3 lbs vs 5.3 lbs of Nitrogen, 1.76 lbs vs 1.12 lbs of phosphorus, and 3.53 lbs vs 2.8 lbs Potassium.

instead of spreading a synthetic high nitrogen fertilizer or organic fertilizer, 1x or 2x per year top dress lawn with fine screened compost (e.g. 3/8" screened leaf mold compost). Not only is it high in organic content, it contains all of the macronutrients (N-P-K) as well as micronutrients (e.g. magnesium and calcium). To be fair, spreading a 1/4" layer of compost over an entire lawn is a lot of work

instead of top dressing with compost which is a lot of work, spread fine granule humates and biochar. Granular humates contain dehydrated highly available humic acids which increase water retention of soils, increase nutrient uptake in plant roots, and stimulate stronger plant roots. Granular biochar increase soil pore space for beneficial bacteria and fungi which increases water holding capacity, nutrient uptake to roots, and ultimately less fertilizer will be needed.

I'm in the 7th year in this house. The base soil is clay, but to be above the 500 year flood plain the builder built up the lawn with over 1 foot of a sand and clay mixture (very low organic content since way more sand than clay), and then topped with very thin layer of topsoil. That sand layer retains very little water, contains very few earthworms, and is slightly alkaline (i.e. pH is slightly about 8). I've been doing the organic fertilizer, sulfur (lowers pH), humates, and biochar for about 4 years now and in that time I've seen a big increase in earthworms (almost every time I put a shovel in the ground there is an earthworm), a decrease in watering, and the soil is now classified as a sandy loam instead of sand. I've top dress composted a few spots (e.g. where it dries out faster than rest of lawn) but haven't applied to entire lawn as it would take 4 cu yd.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
FINALLY some good soaking rain after a full 6 weeks of virtually not a drop.

Yep rain is back here at the WV / PA line as well after 6 weeks, although we did get one full day of rain about 2 weeks ago. The creek running through the property still ran but it was getting low.