To conserve water and meet California's new water-use restrictions, one place to start is literally in one's own backyard. More than half of all household water use is typically used outdoors on landscape, according to University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources experts.
For homeowners, there are six key things to do to conserve landscape water, says Karrie Reid, UC ANR Cooperative Extension advisor, in San Joaquin County. Reid gives the following six tips:
- Tune up your irrigation system right away. When water is efficiently and accurately applied, less water is needed to keep plants healthy. Spray heads can get knocked out...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Pesticides that have not been sold at the retail level for years are still regularly found in residential runoff water, according to research in Sacramento and Orange counties by UC scientists. So called “legacy pesticides” are probably old products that homeowners still have on their garage shelves and are still using to control pests.
An earlier study by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the UC Integrated Pest Management Program found that 60 percent of pesticides sold to consumers are for ant control. For that reason, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in landscape horticulture Loren Oki of UC...
