Florida agency asks residents to skip a week of watering

The Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) wants residents who irrigate their lawns to “Skip a Week” of watering during the cooler months of December, January and February.

The District encompasses roughly 10,000 square miles in all or part of 16 Florida counties, serving a population of more than 5 million people.

One-half to three-quarters of an inch of water every 10–14 days is sufficient for lawns in the winter months, says SWFWMD.

Homeowners can determine when their grass needs water when:

• Grass blades are folded in half lengthwise on 30 percent of the lawn

• Grass blades are blue-gray

• Footprints remain on the lawn for several minutes after walking on it

In addition to entering the dry season, the region is experiencing the effects of a four-year drought. All 16 counties within the District are under one-day-per-week lawn watering restrictions through the end of February. SWFWMD is one of five water districts in Florida.

(Image courtesy Rain Bird)

End of the grassy American front yard?

(Image courtesy MJIphotos)

Grass seems to be on its way to becoming the poster child for all that’s wrong with our landscapes, at least in an environmental sense. Could this growing sentiment signal the end of the grass-covered front yard?

That’s not at all far-fetched. At least in California that's the case where water use on home lawns is in policymakers' line of fire.

Much of the state has been suffering a multi-year drought and local water authorities are under orders from Sacramento to conserve water. All cities in California must pass “water efficient” landscape ordinances by year’s end, with many cities there seeking to limit the amount of water used (and wasted, they feel) on home lawns.

For example, council members in Santa Rosa, CA, a city of about 160,000 in Sonoma Country, the heart of California’s wine country, are considering a landscape ordinance that would, in effect, prohibit grass in the front yards of new subdivisions of five or more homes.

Homeowners in Santa Rosa would still be allowed to have grass in their backyards so their children have a place to play, reports the Santa Rosa (CA) Press Democrat in an article published Nov. 28.

For many Americans, including the writers of this blog, it's hard to imagine homes without soft, cool, grassy front yards.

Developers will influence green landscape choices

SAN ANTONIO, TX — On Dec. 15 the first building in The Preserve on Fredericksburg on the northwest edge of the city will be ready for occupancy, says its developers. The new upscale apartment community features the “copyrighted” Big House design by Dallas-based Humphreys & Partners Architects.

Landscapers should take note of the “Go-Green” design features of this 25-acre, 35-building development, which will offer 376 apartments. In addition to promoting the use of Energy Star-rated appliances and energy efficient windows, promoters of The Preserve are stressing its “green” landscape features. These features, as you might expect in the water-stressed Texas Hill Country, also figure heavily in the development’s landscape. They include:

— the use of indigenous Texas-native landscaping
— a “uniquely High Country” cistern water-catchment system that provides irrigation to common areas
— a visiting master gardener to instruct residents of the benefits of sustainable farming on an on-site garden

Green landscape features are becoming more popular, not only in the U.S. Southwest but across the country, for a lot of the right reasons. One of the biggest reasons is to reduce water and maintenance costs, which developers use as a selling point for prospects that don’t enjoy lawn work and may have a green consciousness.

Is it time to consider bartering?

Who among us hasn’t traded one good for another? Or exchanged services of equal value with someone else? Bartering is the oldest form of human exchange and it’s still going strong.

We know the following is a minor example of bartering but we thought it was cool nonetheless.

Two ladies in Massachusetts recently bartered their sign lettering services for landscape services, including a fall cleanup.

One of the ladies found out how much the landscaper would charge and then the ladies did the same amount in signage, magnetic, truck lettering, whatever they need. All parties seemed to be happy with the deal, reports wickedlocal.com.

We wonder if landscapers are more open to the concept of bartering in light of customers’ increasing reluctance to part with their cash in this economy?

Enrollment in PSU's World Campus, including its online turf instruction, growing like crazy

Almost 10 years ago when A. J. Turgeon Ph.D. taught Penn State’s first completely online class he had just 17 students. Today almost 10,000 students from around the country and world are taking classes from PSU’s World Campus. The World Campus now offers degrees 63 different degrees, says an article in the Centre Daily Times, Centre, PA.

Presently, Turgeon teaches three on-campus turfgrass courses and two completely online courses. He is now one of a staff of about 120 involved with PSU’s World Campus.

Did we mention that online education is growing fast?

How’s this — a 37% increase of course enrollments from last year to this, reports the Centre Daily Times.

Nanotechnology coming soon in a package to you?

The agrichemical industry is driven for many reasons to develop organic pesticides posing less risk to humans and fewer adverse effects to the environment. These newer products are usually less persistent in the environment, effective at lower use rates and often targeted at specific pests.

This is a tall and expensive order. It may take the discoverer of a new molecule up to a decade to bring this new active ingredient (a.i.) to marketable products. Almost always this new pesticide is used in agriculture first. Then, depending upon the molecule’s action against specific turf & ornamental weeds or pests and its expected financial payback, it may find its way to our market.

OK, you already know this stuff, right?

What you may not realize is the importance of formulation science in the process. Developing formulations that allow a molecule to do the job it’s supposed to do in an environmentally friendly, efficient and economical way is as vital to the process as discovering the a.i. in the first place.

That’s why a recent presentation at the British Crop Production Council Congress by a gentleman by the name of Steve Rannard of IOTA NanoSolutions is so exciting.

As reported in the Farmers Weekly Interactive on Friday, Nov. 13, Rannard reported that his company has come up with a process to develop nano-dispersed formulations for organic pesticides possessing a low solubility in water. Nanotechnology is the study of the controlling of matter on an atomic and molecular scale, says Wikipedia.

Without getting too deeply into specifics (click here for the article on Farmers Weekly Interactive to learn more), the end result of the process is the formation of tiny nanocrystals of the a.i. that behave almost like a solution when mixed with water.

Why is this significant?

Nano-dispersed formulations reduce packaging waste and shipping costs, reduce the need for solvents and —this is huge — improve performance at greatly reduced use rates. At least that’s been the case in trials with “a world-leading” fungicide, Rannard claimed in the article in the Farmers Weekly Interactive.

Look for nanotechnology to make a big splash in the pesticide market within the next two or three years. — Ron Hall

New Web site and university class to specifically teach sustainable landscaping

Dr. Marietta Loehrlein, a horticulture professor at Western Illinois University, is teaching a new class called Sustainable Landscaping Practices, in spite of the fact that there is no textbook on the topic that is appropriate for such a class.

“The technologies are developing very quickly, and our students need to learn about them before they get into the job market,” explains Loehrlein. “Getting a textbook published will take too long, our students need this information now.”

Dr. Loehrleiln has also started a Web site focusing specifically on sustainable landscaping thanks to a stipend from the WIU Foundation and Office of Sponsored Projects in 2010. You can access it here.

She says many university classrooms are equipped to access information on the Internet. Her Web site will make it easier for both instructors and students to access the information in an organized manner. Click here to access http://sustainablelandscaping.us.