The Riverside Press-Enterprise yesterday ran a nearly 700-word story about a Riverside field day aimed at saving water resources while maintaining beautiful green turf. The article said a new botany professor at UC Riverside, James Baird, joined forces with UC Cooperative Extension to bring back the annual landscape and turf field day after it had been on hiatus a few years.
"Water is only going to get more scarce," Baird was quoted. "And landscaping is one of those areas where we can make major progress first, where we can really work to be good stewards of the environment."
UC research to develop prettier, tougher and drought-resistant turf has focused on developing hybrid grasses, which are created by cross breeding to blend the best attributes of different species into the same grass.
The story quoted a seed company representative at the field day, who said, "You can use 20 percent less water easy with new turf."