What we’re noticing:

  • Pretty much the same as last week. Despite a couple showers, our service area is still in level 2 and 3 drought categories and we’re still experiencing abnormally high temperatures.
  • Something new we are noticing is “heat tracking” and actually from us in a couple cases (for the first time ever). The unique weather conditions have caused this despite our conservative strategy to avoid it.
    • Article about heat tracking;
      • “Some will misdiagnose tracking damage as being from a pesticide or fertilizer application.”
      • “Although heat tracking and wilt damage can look really bad, in almost all cases the damage is not fatal. Irrigation, rainfall and cooler temperatures will help the turf recover.”
    • Because we’re so likely to get blamed for heat tracking (mis-diagnosed as a lawn care product burn), we’ve always ceased production when daytime temps hit 85* while heat tracking typically doesn’t occur until 90* but we’re so dry that we’ve seen a couple cases of us causing it below 85*.
    • The easiest way to determine if it was us or not is to look at the track pattern. We do loops around your lawn that are about 8 feet apart. Your lawn mowing company goes back and forth in straight lines immediately adjacent to the last straight line.

What we’re doing:

  1. Also the same as last week.
  2. The bit of moisture we got last week will help with the heat tracking (Read more in the “what we’re noticing” section) but we’re also going to be even more conservative with our equipment on the dry lawns.

What you can be doing:

  1. If you mow (do you really need to??) ensure you aren’t doing it when temperatures are over 85* to avoid heat tracking. Keep an eye on your mowing company too – they love blaming us for heat tracking 😉
  2. The rest is the same as last week;
    1. Mow as high as possible if you need to at all.
    2. Water as needed