Seasons Change, People Change

As we get ready to say goodbye to Summer, it is important to remember to adjust your irrigation. We will stay hot, but not as hot. The days are getting shorter. These factors combine to tell us to reduce our irrigation to our lawns. One easy way to do this that many do not know about is the “Seasonal Adjust” setting on your irrigation timers. Usually there is a dial setting called “seasonal adjustment” which allows you to simply raise or lower the percentage of irrigation time. Simply turn the dial to “seasonal adjustment” and you will see a digital number appear. Typically the number is “100,” meaning that the setting is at 100%. In other words, the time that you programmed your system to run per zone is at 100%. Or to put it another way, if I set the time for 30 minutes, the irrigation will water the zone for 30 minutes. You can lower or raise the percentage to adjust seasonally, hence the name. Now that we are getting shorter days and somewhat lower temps, you will want to back off the length of time each zone runs. By lowering the seasonal adjustment percentage you lower the times the zone will run. Its that easy. In the Spring, when we get windy days and much less rain, you will need to adjust your system back to 100%. In the Winter, maybe reduce to 50% or less. This convenient feature allows you to change the amount of irrigation you lawn needs without much trouble at all. Take advantage of it! Your lawn will look its best with the right amount of water. With the right amount of water, you will have less weeds, less pest, and less disease.