Amount of Water

• Bermudagrass lawns need about 1 to 1 1/4 inches of water from irrigation or rain per week. This is enough water to penetrate to a depth of 4 to 6 inches and to saturate the lawn’s root zone. You can get a rough idea of how deeply the water is absorbed with a screwdriver, which will easily penetrate the moist part of the soil. If you have sandy soil, apply 3/4 inch of water every three or four days.
  
  

Watering as Needed

• Conserve water by watering only when the lawn shows signs of stress from lack of moisture. When 30 to 50 percent of the individual blades of grass are wilted or folded and have a bluish-gray tint, the lawn is stressed. Walking across a stressed lawn leaves footprints because the grass doesn’t recover when the blades are bent. Apply 3/4 to 1 inch of water when you see these symptoms.
  
  

Water Conservation and Drought

• Water a bermudagrass lawn early in the morning so more of the water is absorbed by the lawn. If you see runoff before you are finished watering, apply the water in short sessions. Aerate compacted clay soil, and dethatch when the thatch measures more than 1/2 inch to allow the water to penetrate easily. During a drought, a stressed bermudagrass lawn eventually turns brown and quits growing. The lawn isn’t dead, but has gone dormant. When you resume watering, the grass will recover.
  
  

Measurement

• To measure the amount of water your sprinkler delivers, place coffee cans in different areas of the sprinkler’s reach. Run the sprinkler for 15 minutes, then pour all the water into one can to measure the depth. Divide the measurement by the number of cans to determine how much water your sprinkler system delivers in 15 minutes. Convert this to inches per hour by multiplying by four. To give the lawn an inch of water, run the sprinkler 120 minutes if your sprinkler delivers 1/2 inch per hour, 60 minutes if it delivers 1 inch per hour, 40 minutes if it delivers 1 1/2 inch per hour, and 30 minutes if it delivers 2 inches per hour.