Turfgrass Performance As Influenced By Irrigation Sensors.

A picture-perfect lawn is a goal of many homeowners, however achieving this can come at a significant economical and environmental cost. Many homeowners with automatic irrigation systems are unaware of how much water they actually apply during each irrigation cycle and could be over applying, thus wasting water resources. Best management practices, such as improved irrigation scheduling, can be attained by using smart water application technologies to maximize water conservation without compromising turf quality. Previous research using rain sensors (RS) and soil moisture sensors (SMS) has mainly been limited to Florida on sandy soils and many of these trials have been conducted using commercial SMS which can come at an expensive purchase and installation costs. These previous studies have observed higher percentages of water savings using SMS over RS, however both technologies have proven to yield significant savings both environmentally and economically compared to irrigation controllers without an add-on sensor device. Additionally RS and SMS in residential home-lawns have been shown to optimize water use without negatively impacting turfgrass performance. Already popular in many golf course, athletic turf, and commercial lawn systems, SMS are becoming more available for the residential home-lawn and being made more homeowner-friendly (i.e. do-it-yourself) in terms of their cost, installation, and programming. The objective of this study was to evaluate two RS and two SMS that are promoted for residentially use and examine their efficiency in terms of water savings and affect on turfgrass quality. This study was conducted at the University of Arkansas Research and Extension Center in Fayetteville, AR on captina silt loam (Typic Fragiudult) soil and common bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L.) turf. Rain sensor thresholds were set at 3.2 mm threshold and SMSs were set to their respective default calibration thresholds.