| Conserving H2O resources: from agriculture to home lawns This year, shortfalls in water supplies may prove especially critical to Idaho's well-being. "We are going into the winter with some of the lowest reservoir carryover on record," says Howard Neibling, UI Extension water management engineers in Twin Falls, "and after three years of really dry weather, aquifer levels are dropping as well. " says Neibling. "It's important for everybody to do what they can." Here are just a few of the things CALS faculty are doing to help Idahoans close the spigot on superfluous water use. Boise classes whet interest in water-efficient landscapes More interest
in xeric landscapes It’s a slow process, she says. “When people come to Boise—and they come from all over—they have in mind landscapes where they’ve lived before and they want to recreate those landscapes here. When they ask me, ‘What can I grow here that takes no water and no care?’ I point to the foothills. They don’t like that answer.” But Bell assures them that they have options beyond rocks and sagebrush—if they’re willing to become familiar with unfamiliar drought-tolerant plants. The Ada County UI Extension Office partners with United Water and the Boise Public Works Department to offer the program. “Next to the air we breathe, water is our most important physical need,” says Mary Cahoon, United Water’s outreach and education coordinator. “We live in a high desert, and we all need to learn how to be good stewards of this really precious resource so that we can continue to have a plentiful aquifer.” Drawing heavily on Bell and other Treasure Valley horticultural professionals, the series covers soil improvements, mulching, composting, planning and design, irrigation and maintenance, and regionally appropriate annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, and turf. Like Bell, Cahoon notices the program’s impacts on trips around town. “Participants immediately start using their new knowledge,” she says. They make more informed decisions about how often to water, which plants to buy, and where to put them. Cahoon sees more mulches being used, more drip systems installed in shrub beds, and more lawns growing taller in peak summer heat to retain soil moisture. “It’s very rewarding to see these gardeners enjoy healthier and more beautiful landscapes that require less water,” she says. Passionate
for xeriscaping
Soil-moisture monitoring is key to commercial furrow-crop irrigation efficiency
Onion producers who irrigate with furrows often underirrigate in June, shortchanging their crop when it needs water most. By August, they over irrigate, trying to catch up but prompting onion rot in the process. Seven UI
Extension faculty collaborate on research with growers In Weiser, grower Ernie Chandler has been a cooperator from the start. He calls the soil-moisture monitoring technology “an excellent tool. It works really well. It definitely gives you the ability to see where you’re at a lot more easily. There’s a confidence level with it.” The key to the research and demonstration project is monitoring soil moisture with Watermark sensors at 1-, 2-, and 3-foot depths, reviewing thrice-daily reports on Hansen dataloggers, and adjusting irrigation accordingly. That’s what the UI Extension educators do in the “treatment” plots of each sugarbeet field. “With this technology, you have a better understanding of what’s happening 2- and 3-feet down,” says Neufeld. Adjacent to the instrumented plots, growers irrigate as they typically would. Reddy and Neufeld have also added sprinkler-irrigated sugarbeet fields and drip-irrigated onion fields to the mix. “It’s no secret that drip-irrigated onions do much better,” says Reddy. But he and Neufeld want growers to see how much better they do, using less water and losing fewer nitrates below the crop’s root zone. The onion growers are running these tests themselves, adapting their irrigation in response to e-mailed soil-moisture data from the county faculty.
New watering help for home gardeners
The 8-page pamphlet helps readers determine how much water their irrigation method supplies and how much—and when—they should irrigate. It also provides general guidelines for horticulturally healthy home irrigation. It is available through Ag Publications at http://info.ag.uidaho.edu; or 208-885-7982; or e-mail agpubs@uidaho.edu. Ask for CIS 1098. Cost is $2.50, plus $2.15 for Idaho sales tax, shipping, and handling.
Allen helps urbanites correct dubious lawnwatering ways Water resources engineer at the UI Kimberly Research & Extension Center, Allen has a depth of experience in predicting the effects of weather on evaporation from soils and transpiration—loss of water vapor—from plant surfaces. As a member of this blue-ribbon watermanagement committee, he developed methods for calculating when and how much water a lawn will need on a daily, monthly, and seasonal basis. Built into his calculations are climatic factors that affect plants in general and additional factors that affect landscape plants in particular: nearby buildings, lightfiltering trees, and sharp differences in water requirements among ornamental and turf varieties. Not only do BMPs outline how sprinkler and landscaping firms— and the homeowners who hire them—can better design, install, maintain, and manage irrigation systems, but Allen expects the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use them in determining whether the operators of public and private irrigation systems are doing all they can to avoid degrading urban environments. Overusing
nitrogen and water The BMPs at www.irrigation.org are written for both homeowner and city manager and are rich in technical detail. Besides guiding users in the application of minimum-but-uniform amounts of water, Allen hopes the BMPs will whet interest in soilsensor driven irrigation systems that only send water through pipes when soil is dry enough to need it. --Marlene Fritz © 2003 University of Idaho, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. |
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On a long, chilly night in January, a lecture room in Boise will
once again fill with hundreds of Treasure Valley gardeners. They
will have rushed—or delayed—their dinners to learn how
to conserve water in their landscapes come spring. Susan Bell, UI
Extension horticulture educator in Ada County, has watched them
squeeze in together, coat-sleeve to coat-sleeve, since 1992. Usually
more than 700 participants attend at least one of seven lectures
comprising the free “Seven Fundamentals of Water-Efficient
Landscaping.”
To
increase the odds that your trees, shrubs, turf, perennials, and
annuals will be watered appropriately, University of Idaho Extension
faculty members Howard Neibling, Michael Colt, Susan Bell, and JoAnn
Robbins have developed a consumer-friendly guide to Watering Home
Lawns and Landscapes.
