- Author: Clyde Elmore
- Posted by: Gale Perez
After four years of drought, turfgrass has taken a beating. Some people have turned off the water—the turf has turned into a few patches of grass, but mostly weeds, if anything is growing at all (Figure 1.) Others have reduced irrigation amount or frequency resulting in sparse grass and more weeds (often perennial weeds and/or drought tolerant weeds such as bermudagrass, dallisgrass, field bindweed, dandelion, narrow or broadleaf plantain, knotweed, hairy fleabane, star thistle and others.) Other people of course have removed the grass and replaced the landscape without turfgrass. There also has been a concerted effort to get people to reduce the grass in the landscape by painting with a broad brush that grass is a heavy water...
- Author: Gale Perez
A little something Lynn Sosnoskie shared with us... real weeds in artificial/fake turf.
- Author: Clyde Elmore
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Do weed populations change during a drought? Does drought favor certain species? Does annual or perennial species matter? During this four year period of drought in California, have they changed? What are the populations of annual and perennial weeds? With a limiting growth factor, in this case water, weeds become more prominent and which of them will or could disappear?
In urban landscapes, where turf grass areas are being renovated, or in non-irrigated land that has been farmed, but furloughed, or in non-cropped roadsides or wasteland, are we seeing life-cycle species shifts? Or is it that we see a loss or decreased competitiveness of annual species, thus perennial species can be observed?
I will give the example of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Here's something from Jeannette Warnert [(559) 240-9850, jewarnert@ucanr.edu] via UC ANR News :: July 15, 2015
The drought needs not be a death sentence for your lawn
While a golden brown lawn is seen as a badge of honor to some residents of drought-stricken California, in fact, they are doing more harm to the environment than good, says UC Agriculture and Natural Resources
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