Drought Has Seemingly Killed Our Grass

We have extreme drought here in Madison, WI. I am not watering the lawn; we have a well. Wells in southern Wisconsin have been going dry. I'd rather have water to drink and use than put it on the grass.

Grass goes dormant and can withstand no rain for about 6 weeks before it will officially die. We have been lucky; we had rain twice last week and again heavily this morning. It looks like it might save our grass. It doesn't look like it was enough to save the crops, though.

The extreme high heat and high heat index is coming back again, so I am still not going to water the lawn. If the grass dies, I will seed this fall or in the spring.

My husband's happy, because he doesn't have to mow the lawn.

Yes. The brown grass is most likely just the grass going into hibernation. It will come back next year. If you still have brown patches next yr, it might be thatch and you can take care of that with a rake, next year. I was recently looking into this myself. We have yellow to brown patches in our yard. My husband and I were talking about it and we remembered that several years ago we had really hot days in April-hardly any rain. The grass had bad patches then also. It can back. Of course, we make sure to take care of it when reviving, using fertilizer (like Miracle Grow for grass) and a good raking. Then let the grass grow so it really needs a good mow. Always works for us.

Yes, but it might depend. As the others said, dry grass goes dormant and often comes back when it gets enough water or the following spring. However, it does need a minimum amount of moisture and if it doesn't get that it can die. It might also need some TLC and the dryness makes it more prone to weeds. I might call a local garden store or talk to someone in the lawn and garden department of a retailer to get some advice.

ETA: if you do decide to water it, a long soaking is better than shorter, more frequent waterings. The longer, less frequent waterings help develop the root system. I'm not a lawn perfectionist like many of my neighbors, but I do use a beet sugar-based organic fertilizer and have learned to water using less water, but also strengthening the root system.

It has just gone dormant. We let ours do it every summer (i.e. we NEVER water our lawn). It comes back every spring. Wish it would go dormant sooner this summer, I am sick of mowing :)

Have you been watering it regularly during the drought weeks? If you water it through the fall it will come back before going dormant for the winter. The root system may be very stressed by not receiving enough moisture. We had a super hot summer in ND once and we didn't water enough--brown, crunchy dry grass. When we watered the entire lawn throughout the week it made a huge difference and then was not difficult to maintain the rest of the summer. Good Luck!