How to Set Lawn Sprinkler Run Times for the Midwest

When setting sprinkler run times for your Midwest lawn, take the climate of your particular state and your lawn's soil type into consideration. To keep your grass thick and green all summer long, remember that heavy soils can often only absorb 1/2 inch of water per hour. To avoid turning the soil's surface muddy, rotate your sprinklers so each area only receives the necessary 1/2 inch per hour.

Bucket
Ruler
Soil probe

Instructions

- 1
  Check the type of soil in your yard. Water penetrates sandy soils much faster than thicker clay soils.
- 2
  Position your sprinkler so the spray covers as much of the yard as possible. Place a bucket on the ground somewhere within the sprinkler's spray pattern and turn the sprinkler on for 20 minutes.
- 3
  Measure the amount of water the bucket collected and multiply this number by three. This tells you how many inches of water your sprinkler puts out in one hour.
- 4
  Insert a soil probe into the ground and pull it out to remove a small sample of dirt. Measure how far down the water penetrated in the 20 minutes of your sprinkler running. Ideally, you want the water to penetrate to a depth of 6 to 8 inches. Clay soils need about 1 1/2 inches of water to reach this depth while sandy soils only need 1/2 inch.
- 5
  Use the measurements from Step 3 to determine how long your sprinkler needs to run to give your grass the appropriate amount of water. Water your lawn during hot, dry spells. Do not water your lawn if you received more than 1 inch of rain during the week.

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