Seasonal Growth (Irrigated Grass/lawns)

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The two areas these standard covers is Irrigated Lawns and Non irrigated Grasslands, Irrigated lawns consist of mostly summer cutting, non irrigated grasslands are mainly winter growth of a mix of grass, Kikuyu, and annual weeds, these two areas can often overlap and will require additional labour to combat the area-wide growth.

 

The biggest factor that determines the need for mowing is the growth, this is determined by two factors, the amount of sunlight and the amount of water the plant receives.

 

The amount of sunlight does play a big part in the growth of the lawn, around October when the days become longer and the days start to warm up, the plant will come out of a semi-dormant state and start growing again, however too much heat has the opposite effect, this is where the stomata start to close if too much heat is placed upon the plant, this in effect stifles the growth.

 

This is why we have an up down up affect with lawn growth, the hottest time of the season will stifle growth, however, if moisture is in abundance, the lawn will opportunistically take this and develop growth in the cooler parts of the day, this can often happen in areas around sprinklers and in summer if you looked at it from above you will find greater areas of green near the sprinkler heads radiating out and the dryer grass on the outer flanks of the sprinkler throw.

 

There are ways in combating this effect, one is to waste a lot of water and make it overly available to all the grass in the same capacity as the area close to the sprinkler head, the other ways are to manage the height of the lawn in conjunction with aerating and conditioning the soil.

 

The non irrigated grasslands will start to show growth in April/May when the opening rains fall and follow up rains also take effect, growth will continue until the middle of the winter season when growth will slow, growth will then continue slowly until September/October when the spring flush will bring on the greatest amount of growth and the plants will try and set seed for the next season, this will also coincide with the flush of growth of the Lawned areas.

 

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