- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
If you take out 5.4 million square feet of turf across Orange County, you save 645 million gallons of water. But you also uproot an entire industry, reported Aaron Orlowski in the Orange County Register.
The reporter spoke to a yard worker who said customers are asking for service once a week, where they used to have it twice a week.
“The grass is starting to die out because they've been told to bring down their watering times. Before, they watered two times a day, four times a week. Now, they only water once a week," the worker said.
But in time, the industry is bound to adjust to a new water-conserving reality, assured...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Many Californians are beginning to reluctantly accept that a well-manicured, lush green lawn is no longer a realistic landscape feature in the arid West, reported Steven Kurutz in the New York Times.
Chuck Ingels, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Sacramento County, told the reporter homeowners with traditional green lawns may soon have no choice but to let them go brown. An average of 50 to 60 percent of a household's water consumption goes to outdoor use, which includes the landscape. He...
- Author: Brenda Dawson
Reporter Laurie Lucas covered UC Riverside's turfgrass field day for The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise. Approximately 200 homeowners, park managers, water experts, scientists, nursery professionals and golf course supervisors attended the event. One of the 13 projects highlighted at the Turfgrass Research Facility's event examined water-efficient groundcover, including rosemary, thyme and iceplant. UC Cooperative Extension specialist Donald Merhaut commented on the plants' response to reduced water. "Most of the 18 species we grew with limited irrigation did...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Popular Science, the world's largest science and technology magazine, spotlighted the work of UC Riverside Cooperative Extension turf scientist Jim Baird in its May 2010 "Statistically Speaking" feature. Titled "The Perfect Lawn," the full-page story said Baird is bioengineering grass that drinks less water and still earns praise for its lush, emerald green appearance.
"The process is sort of a gladiator academy for grass," PopSci says. The scientists grow promising hybrids, then turn off the water to see which ones survive.
The article opens with statistics on turf grass' ability to sequester carbon. U.S. lawns, it...