Like all those using the canal, Evergreen Turf pays for every drop of their water. Te water cost and maintenance costs for the canal are part of their water fees. “We’re restricted on how much water we can use in any given year. Each user is given water rights based on their total acreage. So we never plant 100 percent of the farm. We need to allow fallow areas to give the turfgrass in production enough water for adequate growth.”
Users generally know their water allocation at the start of the year. Fox says, “We base our planting on that. Tat allocation can be reduced in instances of extended drought. When California was going through their most stringent drought restrictions, there were hints that those might extend to our area. Tat’s one of our biggest fears and something we monitor extremely close.”
Drought is a daily fact of life in Arizona. “Our evaporation rate is .45 inches a day when temperatures are 110 degrees F. with seven percent humidity, and that’s without factoring in excessive wind,” says Fox.
Te three reservoirs onsite are designed to hold the irrigation water from the canal system. Fox says, “Te reservoirs hold enough irrigation water to carry us four or five days and also act as a buffer during peak water demand so we’re never out of water. Te reservoirs are replenished throughout the week.”
Te Eloy farm now has three center pivot irrigation systems in operation. It also has a lateral irrigation system, which is similar to the center pivots, but has one long line of sprinklers that draw water from a center ditch that runs down the middle of the field. It covers about 135 acres. Fox says, “It’s efficient in terms of energy and water use. It would be even more efficient if we only had one variety of grass growing under it, but we currently have six varieties under the lateral.”
Everything runs off electric pumps, which individually power the three center pivots and the lateral irrigation system. With all the systems running, Evergreen Turf can pump almost 5,000 gallons of water per minute to irrigate the entire farm.
Overseeding People think Arizona winters are continually warm, and the state is a snowbird escape from the cold. But Fox says, “Arizona winter night temperatures are cold. We get 30 to 60 days of frost. Temperatures dip into the low 20s consistently and can get down into the teens. Ten daytime temperatures bounce back to the 60s, with humidity levels around seven percent. It’s a huge fluctuation. Our bermudagrasses go completely dormant.”
Tus the need for overseeding high profile turfgrass. Evergreen Turf tries to balance their overseeding to match customer needs. Tey typically overseed about 30 percent of their Arizona acreage.
Te transition out of the overseed is a major problem, especially with the mild spring lingering into early summer the last few years. Fox reports that every year or two they look at what’s new and test various straight varieties of perennial ryegrass and several blends of multiple varieties for better transitioning. Tis year they’ve added a hybrid annual ryegrass as part of the mix for some of their overseeding.
Fox says, “With enough water, you could keep the ryegrass growing here for 11.5 months of the year. Two weeks of our intense heat with 30-50 percent humidity will take out the rye. But by then there could have been eight or nine months with the overseeded rye competing with the bermudagrass, and the Bermuda is starved.”
Most golf course superintendents and sports field managers spray out the rye and switch management practices to encourage the Bermuda. But many homeowners can only use cultural practices or mechanical transitioning to get rid of the ryegrass, which often results in a lot of bare patches. Fox says, “Much of our summer business is resodding transition areas where people keep the rye going too long, even the sports field managers and golf course superintendents.”
All area sod farms must import sand if they want to grow on sand. TPI Turf News January/February 2018
And More Despite those challenging days during the summers and winters, there’s much to love about Arizona and the state’s tourism numbers and growth rates reflect that. In fact, Maricopa County, which includes the greater Phoenix area, was reported as the fastest growing county in the nation in 2016. Tucson, the second largest city in the state, gets more than 350 days of sunshine annually. It’s located in the heart of the biologically diverse Sonoran Desert region, with saguaro forests, awe-inspiring mountain
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