Handling dry seasons

All year long, California superintendents have languished under hot, dry conditions. An area that normally sees only 10 inches of rain annually, got half of that this year. Forest fires and drought in the state made national headlines. However, Jim Baird, turfgrass specialist at the University of California, Riverside has found an amazing, drought-ending technique.

A researcher checks turf plots during the 2014 California Turf Field Day.

“I’ve made an important discovery on how to end the drought in California…set up dry down/water deficit experiments throughout the state and the rain will come,” he says ruefully.

Just when he was ready to present some great drought data, it poured. At the 2014 Turf Field Day, the turf team was barely able to clean up the mess resulting from the storms and talk about the way things looked before the deluge of rain in early September.

About 80 percent of the Field Day revolved around water, including the challenge of using saline water. An array of turf is being examined under a range of saline irrigation levels.

Another interesting project at the University of California, Riverside is the objective research being done on a range of products that purport to relieve salinity stress.