Texas Heat!

[pacerron]

Here is a new article today about watering from Texas Agri Life Extension that leads to a calculator that could be very helpful.
Ron
Online calculator helps homeowners preserve lawns while saving water

 

[txdon]

Anybody know what size tracked backhoe and cost involved that is needed to clean out my spring pond/hole that has dried to a 30' round mud hole. The mud is very soft up to 6' down and the hole can be accessed from only 3 sides because of a border fence on one side. This is the lowest it has been in 20 years. about 30 years ago my Uncle refused to use his bulldozer to clean it out because he could not find a solid bottom with a steel rod, and the owners then, I heard, used a large backhoe. Thanks.

 

[Western]

Bird, driving home tonight I saw allot of lightening up your way, you use your "magic wand"??

109 today, glad I worked last night! 10% chance of rain today? Where did that come from?? Also, looks like we will beat the all time record for continuous days over 100 degrees by Saturday.

Tell you one thing , avoid hwy 114 and 121 in Grapevine like the plague, sat in construction this morning from 2:45am-3:25am.

 

[NativeSon]

I wonder with all the heat and dryness this year if you are seeing lots of Bagworms on the trees?
They are really bad up here.
Ron

Ron we use to have bagworms here, but I haven't seen them in a long time. My grandmother had two big Cedar trees out front in her yard when I was a kid and we were always picking them off and then we'd throw them on the ground and stomp on them. Great fun for kids.

As I drive around we're losing more & more trees, lots of Red Oaks, and Pin Oaks and even some Pine and Elm. Except for AC running full blast it could pass for early Fall. I'm afraid it will only get worse. So far I've only lost one huge Pin Oak, but I have others showing stress.

Still Praying for Rain.


Charlie

 

[Bird]

Bird, driving home tonight I saw allot of lightening up your way, you use your "magic wand"??

109 today, glad I worked last night! 10% chance of rain today? Where did that come from?? Also, looks like we will beat the all time record for continuous days over 100 degrees by Saturday.

Tell you one thing , avoid hwy 114 and 121 in Grapevine like the plague, sat in construction this morning from 2:45am-3:25am.

Dennis, I didn't know there was any lightning, and certainly not any rain. And yes, forecast is 109 today with a 10% chance of isolated thunderstorms after 1 p.m.

And you're sure right about 114 and 121. Even though we didn't get stuck anywhere, the last time we went that way, my wife asked me why.:laughing: I told her I just wanted to see what they were doing.

Ron, I don't guess I've seen the bagworms on anything but cedar, but can't say I'm surprised they can be on other trees. I think it was about 3 years ago that we had a lot of webworms in the neighborhood, but fortunately not on my trees.

But drought stressed trees are obvious in the neighborhood this year.

Down in Navarro County, we sometimes had the webworms on our pecan and plum trees, and of course I sprayed them with insecticide. But when I was a kid and we had lots of plum trees, I used to have to put a corncob on the end of a thin steel rod or heavy wire, dip it in kerosene and light it, then use that to burn the webworms out of the trees. I don't suppose anyone does that anymore.

 

[jinman]

I too was in the Southlake and Grapevine area yesterday afternoon. I had to leave Southlake Town Center and go down to highway 157 and I30 around 2:30 PM. Having worked in the Grapevine area for many years, I was able to completely skirt the construction by following Carroll Blvd south and use a couple of other streets to intersect with highway 360 south of the DFW Connect construction. It took just over 20 minutes to go from Southlake to Arlington.

 

[pacerron]

I used to have to put a corncob on the end of a thin steel rod or heavy wire, dip it in kerosene and light it, then use that to burn the webworms out of the trees. I don't suppose anyone does that anymore.

Bird,
I sure hope nobody tries any fire cobs this time of year with the dry tinder around. Our open fields are surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods, most of which are not accessable even with logging equipment.
Using the NW Frisco weather station, it looks like you guys need a lot of water to keep your St. Augustine going.
ITC - TexasET Network
The simple pan test calculation would show enough or too much.
Ron

 

[pacerron]

I've calculated around 7,000 gallons each time I water (every other day). My yard is roughly 3/4 acre or 32,670 sq ft. If the water is delivered perfectly, that means 7,000/32,670 = 0.214 gallons per square foot or 0.107 each day. That's 0.856 pints of water on each square foot. Considering I've been generous with my quantities above, I'll just say I'm putting down 1-1/2 pints of water on each sqauare foot every other day. You'd think that would be plenty, but there are places where the grass is gasping for a drink on the evening of the 2nd day before the next morning's watering.
The evaporative power of the sun is unbelieveable. My deep pond is dropping 6" to 8" per week, but still has plenty of water. The level is down about 2-1/2' total. Because of the slope of the sides, I'd say that 2-1/2' is probably 1/3 of the total volume of the pond. I've seen lots of dry ponds, but mine is holding well, all things considered.

Jim,
If you have 32,670 sq ft of lawn to water, that is x 144 sq inches in a square foot which equals 4,704,480 sq. inches. If we use an amount of water per week to equal 1 inch deep, then we have 4,704,480 cu. inches of water. 1 Cubic Inch = 0.00432900433 Gallons [US, Fluid]
4,704,480 cu in x 0.00432900433 equals 20,366 gallon per week required.
If we interpret your statement above to be 7,000 gallon every other day that equals 3,500 gallon per day. So if you are watering 7,000 gallon every other day which would be 4 times in every 7 days you are pumping 24,500 gallon per week to your yard.
However, if you are only watering 2 days a week for a total of 7,000 gallon you are only putting one third of an inch of water on the lawn.
If you are watering 3500 gallon in a 6 hour period that is 10 gallon a minute so your pump must be higher capacity than that.
If you are only watering every other day but pumping 7,000 gallon in a 6 hour period that is 20 gallon per minute dedicated to lawn watering.
We are not quite sure of how to interpret your explanation of your watering method?

Our pond was down 19 inches when I measured it on Saturday, last.
Of course we have had more rain than you guys, but we have had years when it stays full. The dog found a "snake in the weeds"
Ron

 

[jinman]

If you are only watering every other day but pumping 7,000 gallon in a 6 hour period that is 20 gallon per minute dedicated to lawn watering.
We are not quite sure of how to interpret your explanation of your watering method?

Our pond was down 19 inches when I measured it on Saturday, last.
Of course we have had more rain than you guys, but we have had years when it stays full. The dog found a "snake in the weeds"
Ron

Ron, I have three spigots and four hoses that I water from. I used my gage and found I had pumped 3150 gallons in 6 hours at the "Y" adapter that feeds two impulse sprinklers. I measured the other single impulse sprinklers on single hoses also. They have smaller nozzles on their impulse sprinklers and my measured flow was exactly 1/2 the total flow of the "Y" adapter nozzles at 1575 gallons for 6 hours. So I have four 100' 5/8" hoses running out to four impulse sprinklers. All the feed lines to the spigots are 3/4" pvc and around 40' from the well to each spigot. I only use four sprinkler heads because my pump can sustain 40 psi at the pressure tank with four sprinklers. If I add a fith sprinkler, the pressure drops to below 20 psi in short order. That tells me that the four hoses are running at my pump's maximum capacity. That's 17.5 gpm at 40 PSI. My guess is that if I had the well head open with no pressure tank, I could probably pump 20-25 gpm directly out of the 1" pipe. I've never measured that nor felt any need to do that.

The truth is that on most watering days since the temperature has gone to 105+, I'd say I most likely water 7 hours or even more. I water my yard every other day, so one week I water 4 days and the next I water 3 days. Two days ago when I was soaking some St. Augustine spots that were showing stress, I probably watered a total of 10 hours. Right now, I'm using water at a rate much higher than 100k gallons per month. I'll continue to do that as long as the weather gives us scorching heat and no rain. I also water my garden and several flower beds on the day I'm not watering the grass.

I am getting an even distribution of water over my grass as is shown by the condition and color of the grass. After mowing, I do have some less green spots that get sun dried when I cut grass. My mower is set to 4" tall and the grass is deep and thick, but baked by the sun in the unshaded spots. I've very careful to get even distribution of water. The grass would look much greener if I fertilized, but I just don't want to do that in this heat.

Ron, your picture of your pond and grass is something that you just don't see around here right now. Most grass is dry and straw-like in appearance. Only a few green weeds dot the highway ROWs and city landscaping is drying up and dying. My deep pond is now down 3' from overflow. It still has plenty of water as long as this drought breaks in two or three weeks. If we are lucky, we won't have to wait that long for a shower and a break from the heat.

 

[Western]

We had a few web-worms this years early, I got most of them with a small torch:thumbsup:

Driving into town yesterday, it was surreal to see so many oaks getting a Brown tint to them. Like Jim said, it is starting to resemble fall.

I have resolved to just "attempt" to keep the lawn alive and letting it grow till I cant stand it. The St Aug. I will keep watered good since it is so sensitive. I was reading an article that said the city of San Antonio had a moratorium on St Aug planting since it's water consumption is so great. I have never heard of a city targeting grass.