Why Lawns Go Full Drama Queen During Droughts

Imagine being stuck in a sauna without a drink of water.

That's your lawn during extreme dry heat. Here are the main culprits:

1. Lack of Water: Duh. When it's hot outside, your lawn needs more water. But with water restrictions and the general annoyance of hauling a hose around, many lawns just don't get enough.
2. Soil Compaction: If your soil is as hard as a rock, water won't penetrate it. Roots can't grow, and your grass will starve for water.
3. Poor Root System: Grass with shallow roots is like a teenager with a bad Wi-Fi connection—constantly in distress. Deep roots are essential for tapping into moisture reserves, but hot, dry conditions can prevent roots from growing deep.

Common Lawncare Blunders in the Heat of the Moment

We all make mistakes, but when it comes to lawn care in extreme heat, these common goofs can turn your yard into a crispy nightmare.

1. Overwatering: Believe it or not, you can overdo it. Too much water can lead to shallow roots and fungal diseases. Plus, if water just sits on the surface, it can evaporate before it even reaches the roots.
2. Underwatering: On the flip side, skimping on water is a sure way to send your lawn into a death spiral. Consistency is key, folks!
3. Mowing Too Low: A short tight lawn might look neat, but it's a death sentence during drought. Longer grass shades the soil, keeping it cooler and reducing evaporation.
4. Fertilizing During Drought: Fertilizing during extreme heat can burn your grass and make it extra crispy.
5. Ignoring Soil Health: If your soil is more barren than a Monday morning coffee pot, your grass won't thrive. Healthy soil retains moisture better and provides essential nutrients.

Strategies to Survive the Lawn-pocalypse

Alright, enough with the doom and gloom.

Here's how to be the Lawn Whisperer and keep your yard looking fabulous, even when Mother Nature is throwing a tantrum.

1. Water Wisely: Water deeply and infrequently. Aim for early morning watering sessions to reduce evaporation. If you have an automatic sprinkler system, set the times so that your sprinkler cycles are ending right as the sun comes up.
2. Aerate Your Lawn: Give your grass some breathing room by aerating your lawn. This reduces soil compaction and allows water to penetrate deeper. It's like giving your lawn a spa day. Try not to do it when your lawn is stressed, spring and fall are best.
3. Mow High: Set your mower blade to the highest setting. Taller grass shades the soil, retains moisture, and promotes deeper root growth. Your lawn will look thick and lush in no time. Like aeration you should avoid mowing spots of stressed grass, it's only going to damage the lawn more.
4. Soil Care: Improve your soil's health by adding organic matter like compost. Healthy soil holds onto water better and provides essential nutrients to your grass.
5. Avoid Fertilizing During Drought: Hold off on the fertilizer until conditions improve. Focus on watering and soil care instead. When the weather cools down, your lawn will be ready for a nutrient boost.
6. Monitor and Adjust: Keep an eye on your lawn's condition and adjust your care routine as needed.
7. When all else fails let it go dormant. It may not look great but the reason your lawn looks brown and crispy is because it's going dormant and protecting the crown to come back when conditions improve. If you can't provide enough water to consistently keep the grass healthy it's better in the long run to let it go dormant rather than to provide inconsistent health that drains resources that the grass will need to recover later. Grass can survive for weeks in that state but if you're going to let it go dormant, provide sufficient water every two weeks or so to keep the roots from drying out completely.

You may notice a shift in turf species growing in your lawn after a spell of drought and dormancy due to differences in stress tolerance, especially for a prolonged drought.

Embrace the Chaos?

Let's be real—sometimes, despite your best efforts, your lawn might still look like it's auditioning for a zombie movie. And that's okay, droughts are tough!

Remember, the key to surviving a Lawn-pocalypse is to stay calm. The lawn could just be responding to environmental stress, but with a little TLC and some strategic care, you can help your lawn bounce back.

Keep hydrated (both you and your lawn), and maybe learn to love a little bit of brown.

As of the writing of this blog at the end of January, the Fresno/Clovis/Madera region has received only 2.79 inches of rain so far this water season, less that 25 percent of the yearly average of 11.01 inches. Unless the Central Valley receives heavy rainfall this spring, we will once again be experiencing severe drought conditions. NOAA scientists have recognized a correlation between drought periods and heat spikes. As the soil in the Valley dries out and warm dry air rises, high pressure domes form over our area, which causes temperatures to rise to extreme levels. We can anticipate that the Central Valley will also experience heat spikes along with the drought this year. 

Our efforts to conserve water and also maintain the health and vigor of trees and plants in our gardens should begin in earnest this month.

There are quite a few types of irrigation devices easily available to home gardeners. Lawn sprinklers include both overhead and pop-up types. Up to 60 percent of the water applied by overhead sprinklers can be lost to evaporation, runoff and overly deep irrigation. Using pop-up or ground level sprinklers can minimize water loss somewhat. During drought periods and especially during heat spikes, irrigation of lawn grasses should be stopped or at least reduced to a bare minimum. 

Drip irrigation can reduce water usage by 50 percent. Systems include soaker hoses (also called porous pipe drip irrigation), pre-installed drip emitter lines, punch-in drip emitters and drip tapes. Soaker hoses are fairly pliable making them excellent for deep slow irrigation of trees and bushes when placed around the outer edges of the leaf canopies. Pre-installed drip emitter lines are less prone to clogging problems than other types of drip irrigation but the spacing of the emitters doesn't always match the spacing of the plants. They're very good for row plantings. Punch-in emitters can be adapted to irregular spacing in a garden which wastes less water. Drip tapes have pre-installed holes and can be buried a few inches deep in the soil, which reduces weed growth and water loss.  

The amount of water and the irrigation pattern applied by emitters varies by emitter type. Choosing the right rate flow for each plant size and species and the best watering pattern is a very important part of irrigation design. 

All types of irrigation systems should be on timers and those timers should be adjusted often to maintain soil moisture levels to the minimum needed to keep plants alive. When heat spikes are predicted, trees and plants should be deep irrigated before the spikes occur. Smart timers that are connected to the internet as well as local weather stations can be programmed and controlled by phone apps. Digital hose end timers can be programmed to turn on several times a day on a seven-day schedule with a rain mode option. There are simpler and cheaper hose end timer models as well. The old-school manually programmable timers as well as more advanced models that are wired to an electrical source are still available.

Sources: 

California Agriculture magazine, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

Garden irrigation, UC Master Gardener statewide program 

Over thousands of years, the indigenous people of California used native plants in myriad ways for food, medicine, shelter, spiritual ceremonies, clothing, tools, and basketry. Some continue to practice the traditions, skills, and customs of their ancestors today. A small sampling of some of the California native plants they used that we may find in our gardens today:

Valley Oak (Querus lobata):

The acorns were a staple food, which was leached (rinsed with water) to remove the bitterness, and ground into flour with mortar and pestles. The ground acorns were used in stews/soups, pancakes/tortillas, mush, or layered into pits and cooked with other plants and meats. Oak galls were squeezed to make a blue-black ink for tattoos and tannins were used to make dyes and decorate animal skins.

Oaks are very important to a wide assortment of wildlife including birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. It is a host plant to several butterflies including the California Sister, Mournful Duskywing, and Golden Hairstreak.

Deer Grass (Muhlenbergia rigens):

A major grass for creating beautiful, sometimes water-tight baskets to cook food, to carry and store food and other items. Stalks were generally harvested in the spring when easy to pick, then wrapped to keep straight and allowed to cure for a year. They were often soaked prior to weaving into basket. About 1600 stalks would be needed to make one basket.

One of the most beautiful California grasses, this easy-to-grow plant attracts butterflies in the spring with its cream-colored flowers and seed-eating birds in the summer.

Santa Barbara Sedge (Carex barbarae):

The rhizomes (underground stems which generally grow horizontally) provided the strongest threads for basket making. The people would manage the rhizome growth by cleaning the soil of anything that might obstruct the growth (i.e., rocks) to allow the rhizomes to grow long and straight. An evergreen grass, the summer flowers range from cream, red and purple colors, which attract butterflies. 

Toyon, aka California Holly (Heteromeles arbutifolia):

The wood from this sturdy shrub had many uses including tools, games/toys, fuel for smoking fish, and religious ceremonies. The red berries produced in the fall which were eaten after roasting over coals or dried in the sun. 

An evergreen shrub, the summer white flowers attract bees and butterflies. Birds love the berries.

Blue Elderberry (Sambucus cerulea):

Stems are easily hollowed, so were used to make musical instruments, such as flutes, whistles, and clappers. Autumn berries were a food source. They were either eaten raw or cooked to make a kind of jam. The bark was brewed to make a remedy for fever.

This tough, easy-to-grow shrub or tree is dormant in the winter. The spring and summer blooming cream or yellow flowers attract bees and butterflies, with their berries being an important food source to many birds.

Manzanita (Arctostaphylos manzanita):

Its distinctive red wood which was sometimes used to dry and smoke fish.  The fruit was gathered in summer, then dried and ground to make coarse meal which would be mixed with a little water during winter months or made biscuits.  They would make tea with the berries and tips of the branches, which apparently was a pleasant drink. 

A beautiful evergreen shrub with lovely pink-white-green flowers that bloom in winter and spring which attracts hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. The berries of this low-water plant attract many birds.

Sticky Monkey Flower (Mimulus aurantiacus):

The seeds were used as a food source. They were gathered, parched, ground, and added to foods or eaten by the handful. Flowers were used as décor after drying, made into wreaths, and used in religious ceremonies. The roots and leaves were used for medicinal purposes.

This drought-tolerant, evergreen shrub blooms in the spring, summer, and fall. The bright yellow tubular flowers attract hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies.  Autumn seeds attract small birds.

Whenever I see any of these California native plants, I think of how the indigenous people of California used these plants over thousands of years. By growing them in our gardens, we honor that history, help the survival of these plants which provide food sources for so many birds, bees, and butterflies, reduce water usage, bring variety to our gardens, and joy to our spirits with their beauty. 

Learn more at the Library - Take a free class!

This September, our UC Master Gardeners will present on the topic, "CA Native Plants" at 9 Stanislaus County Library locations. Visit our Calendar at https://ucanr.edu/sites/stancountymg/Calendar/ for dates, times, and locations.

Upcoming Workshop

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, we are offering our "The New Front Yard" workshop. Topics include drip irrigation, converting your yard to native plants, and how to garden for year-round bloom! Stay tuned for the registration announcement.

Resources:

• Enough For All: Foods of My Dry Creek Pomo and Bodega Miwuk People by Kathleen Rose Smith
• The Real California Cuisine: A Treatise on California Native-Plant Foods by Judith Larner Lowry
• Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources by M. Kat Anderson
• Indian Summer: A True Account of Traditional Life Among the Choinumni Indians of California's San Joaquin Valley
• Great Valley Museum of Natural History at Modesto Junior College's exhibit on Yokuts 
• California Native Plant Society: https://www.calscape.org/

Acknowledgment: Lillian Vallee, English professor emeritus, Modesto Junior College, who has shared her passion and knowledge with me over the years of California native plants and their historical uses by the California native people.

Denise Godbout-Avant has been a UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Stanislaus County since 2020. 

 

Fair warning - you might want to file this blog post under the category, "Aren't Ranchers Ever Happy?!" I'll admit - last year, I was worried about warm temperatures, lack of soil moisture, and dried-up stock ponds here in the Sierra Foothills. We'd had the driest January-March ever recorded. Seasonal creeks weren't running. A lack of stock water was limiting access to some pastures for ranchers in my four counties. But thanks to an early start to the grass season (a germinating rain in October) and warmer-than-usual temperatures, followed by rain (at last) in April 2022, we had plenty of grass from Yuba County south through Placer County. According to the Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Centern (SFREC) in Browns Valley (Yuba County), we had 3,806 pounds of forage per acre on May 1, 2022 - 20 percent more than the historical average for that date. Total precipitation from October 2021 through September 2022 was 21.2 inches - about 17 percent lower than the historical average.

The year before that (the 2020-21 water year) was even stranger. That year, SFREC measured just 10.57 inches of precipitation - the driest year since 2000 (drier, even than the worst of the drought years of 2013-2015). Even with the lack of moisture, however, the grass grew - total production was 108 percent of the historical average (3,382 pounds per acre). Once again, most seasonal creeks didn't run. Spring-fed stock water systems failed. But we had grass.

So where do we stand this year? The 2022-23 water year has been phenomenal. We have a near-record snow pack here in the northern Sierra Nevada. The southern Sierra Nevada has the most snow ever recorded! The creeks are running! Ponds are full! The May 2, 2023 Drought Map shows our region of the Sierra Foothills has escaped the drought!

And we're seeing less forage on May 1, 2023, than we saw in either of the last two drought years!

How can this be?! As of today, SFREC has measured just under 35 inches of rain since October 1 - 42 percent more than "normal." But the May 1 forage production figures are below average - just over 3,000 pounds per acre (about 4 percent under the historical average). What's going on here?

Annual rangelands are notoriously complex (in terms of biodiversity, phenology, and productivity). We've known for some time that forage production on our foothill rangelands has as much to do with the timing of precipitation as it does with the total amount. Forage production also depends on adequate soil and air temperature - warmer soils and warmer ambient air temperatures, given adequate moisture, result in greater forage production. Colder temperatures and cloudy days, on the other hand, tend to work against grass growth - as we've seen during this unusually chilly spring in the foothills.

We also know that photo period - the number of daylight hours - plays a role. I've usually thought of this in terms of winter dormancy - in early December, the days are short enough that the grass goes dormant here in the foothills, regardless of moisture or temperature. This year, however, is teaching me that photo period may be equally important in controlling when our rangeland plants flower and set seed. Even though we still have tremendous soil moisture in our rangeland pastures, I'm seeing many of our annual grasses and broadleaf plants "head out" and go to seed - they're just about done growing, despite what seem like favorable conditions. As any rancher will tell you, as soon as our annual forages go to seed, they drop in palatability and nutritional value.

I'll admit, I can't truly bring myself to call this a drought year. I can live with 96% of normal forage production - it's considerably better than the 2100 pounds per acre we had on May 1, 2015 (when I managed the cow herd at SFREC). But this year is an important reminder about how complex our grazing systems truly are. Carrying capacity fluctuates from one year to the next - and from one month to the next. Our job as ranchers is to build enough flexibility into our management systems to allow us to "weather" the valleys in forage production, and benefit from the peaks!