Aquacents was recently featured on ABC News Arizona 15. See the video below.
Author Archive for bethannon
College of San Mateo (CSM) is one of 3 Campuses that make up the San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD).
The Challenges
In 2017 CSM worked with CLEAResult engineers to conduct an extensive Water Use Evaluation for the CSM Campus, which includes 850,000 sq. ft. of irrigated landscape (approx. 19 acres).
As a benchmark measurement, College of San Mateo utilized 39 million gallons of water in the 12 months prior to the evaluation, with 74% – approx. 29.3 million gallons -utilized in landscape irrigation. The campus had previously upgraded to pressure regulated sprinklers in 2014, but challenged themselves further to find additional, innovative solutions to reduce irrigation water use and costs.
The Solution
Working with Cal Water, who serves 484,900 customers throughout the state, CSM was able to partner on the cost of utilizing Aqua Cents® on 13.3 acres of turf across SMCCCD’s three campus system. Aqua Cents, with its sustained ability to absorb and release stored water, was injected on sports fields, high traffic venues, and essential turf areas that support student relaxation and recreation.
Initial Aqua Cents Injection: June 8-9, 2017
We visited Maidu Regional Park on October 24, and things are continuing to look great!
The Aqua Cents Field is currently being watered at 33% of recommended ETc. The Control Field is being watered at 100% recommended ETc. This represents a current water savings of 67%, with the expectation that we can continue to reduce irrigation on the Aqua Cents Field vs. the Control Field through April, 2018. Turf on the Aqua Cents Field is exhibiting consistent, healthy growth.
Will continue to reduce irrigation, and monitor through April.
WEEK 20 – CONTROL FIELD 100% ETc
WEEK 20 – AQUA CENTS FIELD 33% ETc
Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo recently had a rodeo in their football/soccer stadium that wreaked havoc on the turf. In 13 days, Aqua Cents helped Ron Ion and his team transform the AG Spanos Stadium turf from ravaged to resplendent after the NIRA Rodeo on April 7 and 8, 2017.
“On April 7 – 8 of 2017, our Cal Poly Rodeo team hosted a rodeo in our football/soccer stadium. A liner was installed over the grass, plywood covered the area, and 200 tons of dirt was placed on top. We were very concerned about having damage from the compaction.
“Jenn Downs from Aqua Cents brought her team and equipment on Monday, April 10th to help us out. The Aqua Cents team was very professional and in two days completed the job of injecting liquid polymers along with a seaweed extract fertilizer.
“Our grass transformed from yellow to green within two weeks. On the April 27, our women’s soccer team had a game on the field followed by a football scrimmage two days later and a men’s soccer game. Our field looks great and I’m sure that Aqua Cents played a major role in such a speedy recovery for our grass.”
Ron Ion – Lead Sports Complex CPSU San Luis Obispo
From Javier Gonzalez, Holmes Landscape Company, Account Manager for Mission Murray:
The rainfall we have received this year in Oceanside has helped tremendously with the current water restrictions in California. I’ve noticed that the Aqua Cents turf has held the moisture from the rainfall to date since the January injection . The untreated lawns throughout Mission Murray have received a few cycles of irrigation in the last few weeks due to the warmer temperatures. Our goal is to make our clients successful and we look forward to seeing the success in water savings that Aqua Cents has to offer.
“Those who are unwilling to invest in the future haven’t earned one”. (H.W. Lewis)
Larry Holmes writes:
It has been my pleasure and a great experience to work with the community of Murray Mission Homeowners, a 35 year old neighborhood, totaling 586 homes in the San Luis Rey Valley of North San Diego County. A modestly priced neighborhood of 1500 to 1800 sq ft houses in Oceanside CA, which had a 1970’ s landscape Raphiolepis, Xylosma, Moreae, Canary Pines and Ivy; old and boxed for years. Straight three foot planters along the front walls of each home. Once fescue lawns now full of Bermuda.
Murray Mission is led by a group of the most forward thinking Board of Directors I have ever worked with in my 43 year career. Being proactive they started on a renovation project that has been in progress for over ten years. They had four major goals:
- Reduce lawn areas without compromising the neighborhood feel and aesthetic beauty of real grass, while still providing neighborhood children real grass play areas.
- Reduce their tree care budget.
- Reduce their concrete replacement cost due to the tree root damage.
- Reduce water consumption.
The process was straight forward and executed well. First they established an annual budget using realistic numbers that matched their goals and they developed a plant palette, which was adjusted over the years based on the success or failure of the plants. They implemented strong CC&R’s and enforced them making a great effort to listen to the homeowners input.
As individual areas were assigned to us we developed a theme based upon their plant pallet, a plant list for each individual address was created. Once this was agreed upon we came in and killed off all the old Bermuda, Fescue mixed lawns and remove 95% of the plants and ground covers. Next we redesigned the areas to reduce some of the lawn areas and spray painted where the new concrete mow strips would be installed.
We did a sprinkler system renovation to meet the new designs, heads were capped, moved, eliminated or left in place based on the design. A new Octabubbler drip system was installed on the old planter spray lines to water each shrub individually. In some areas new drain lines were installed.
An added feature to the neighborhood was to introduce landscape boulders, adding a lot to the landscape and giving us a more natural look. Concrete mow strips were installed, plants and trees installed and drip lines installed. Finally we installed acres of Aloha Seashore Paspalum sod. A low water grass introduced by the University of Florida.
Their final step was to replace their antiquated controllers with new Calsense 3000 state of the art weather based irrigation management controllers with flow monitoring and radio communication.
Still looking to the future and as the continued drought in Southern California went on year after year the question was asked what else can we do?
We had the opportunity to set up a beta test location with Aqua Cents; a polymer injection process for lawns. In cooperation with Aqua Cents we injected approximately 1½ acres of lawn using their innovative technology to attempt to save even more water for the association. The process is designed to capture the water that would normally leach out below the grass root zone. By the polymer capturing and storing excess water we should be able to further reduce our water consumption….
It has been a pleasure to be part of this renovation, and now that we have done all of these water saving steps they will be in a position to enjoy their new landscape without the large water consumption they had in the past. Unfortunately, their cost of water has gone up dramatically over the last several years; however we have a very attractive landscape and are still staying within their budget; something that would have not been possible with their old landscape and irrigation system.
“You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization”. Denis Waitley
Larry Holmes
Holmes Landscape Company
4616 North Avenue
Oceanside, CA
(760) 732-3379