What are wetting agents?

Last Summer was extreme, it left many lawns looking terrible and with many lawn owners facing quite sizeable bills to rectify the sun scorched damage resulting in huge amounts of moss and weeds.

If your lawn still appears patchy with dried out areas after heavy rain, then read on.

Some lawns which were watered, (watering your lawn also suffered) although the damage wasn’t as bad, further improvements could be made.

For some of us, no matter how much water we apply, the grass/turf quality just doesn’t seem to improve and water appears to bead on the surface resulting in brown patches or straw like appearance within the lawn.

This image demonstrates water is not penetrating deep enough to the lawn root system, the colour variance is striking – dark showing sufficient water, the lighter colour is dry soil which will be crumbly to the touch.

At North Hampshire Lawn Treatments Ltd, we can help you to apply the necessary amount of water to keep the plant alive, without over compensating, this would clearly be hugely beneficial saving time and money. However, if you are struggling with water penetration and percolation because of dry patch, you will forever be applying more water than is necessary.

So here is how we can help…

We can apply a penetrative wetting agent to your lawn in conjunction with your lawn treatment schedule. Wetting agents help the water to penetrate the soil and reach deeper into the root structure, this certainly will save money as you will not be placing excess water volume onto the turf, resulting in flooding and wastage, also and extremely important is that the water will eventually reach the natural water table.

Extensive research has been conducted on hydrophobic soils and on the effectiveness of wetting agents. Some of these studies have focused on localised dry spots in turf grown on naturally sandy soils, and on formulated materials high in sand content. These dry spots become a serious turf management problem during the summer months, especially during periods of drought. Despite frequent irrigation, the soil in these spots resists wetting, resulting in patches of dead or severely wilted turf. The water applied wets the turf, but does not adequately penetrate the soil surface to reach the rootzone. The same applies to clay based soil, indeed any compacted soil would benefit from this treatment.

See this great Video for more detail, it explains in a visual manner how wetting agents work. This is not a brand we use, ours is suited to a 10 weekly application during the growing season April to October and is highly respected within the UK Golf course turf management industry.

For further information, please fill out the form below, we are happy to help.