backyard landscape and design

Professional Lawn Watering Techniques - Wireless Sensors for Lawns in Drought Areas
By Lance Winslow

AThe technnology secrets will help home owners maintain lawns in drought areas using a fraction of the normal water use. Professional Landscapers know that by burying wirless sensors on a rod in several places on a golf course to measure the exact amount of water getting to the roots. A healthy lawn only needs to be watered done to the roots and approximately three quarters of an inch below that. Any more is a waste and counter productive for the lawns health. Professional lawn watering techniques have often been studied;

http://www.ext.vt.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/D...at?cat=ir-ln-la .

Over watering the laws or greens does no one any good, as a matter of fact invites International Terrorists with Disease Vectors, such as Mosquitoes with West Nile Virus. Municipal parks would also be advised to take notice.

And if you consider the over watering of center medians in the middle of the night and the run off which flows into drinking water of local lakes and causes Algae Blooms from excessive fertilizer nitrates, this too could be fixed with small rods not more than .3 meters long with wireless sensors in it buried a few inches deep to avoid being cut off by lawn mowers (which we hope the waste is used as Bio-fuel and collecting the decay which makes methane gas). The remote control mechanism would be attached to sprinkler system controls and the cost could be as little as $80.00 for the controls and as little as $8 per rod for such uses and mass production of any of these ideas. If all ideas rendered relevant and BMP then perhaps the cost could go down to $35.00 per control and $5.00 per unit. These same devises are used in private wells, pipelines, tanks etc. for fluid level control.

The Flow of water in this country and the degree of savings of un-needed water usage from a conservation stand point is clearly worthy of such expense, especially considering the South Western and North Midwestern drought riden areas. This is an inexpensive solution to a major problem.

This also helps as underground aquifers are depleted long stakes up to 1 mile could be inserted to determine the possibility of Earthquakes from cave ins. Similar to the Coalinga Central Valley Earthquake as crude oil was removed it left empty areas which collapsed. Also what an incredible thing for Nurseries or home gardens and indoor plants:

http://www.diynet.com/diy/pf_house_plants_...2277724,00.html and

http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/lanb002/lanb002.htm

For such an important issue we can really help the problems we face. It has been estimated that watering of Golf Courses in many cities takes up to 10% of the total usage, so if you could cut it down by half, you get 5% back for free. Agriculture could also be highly served by this. With the increased growth and increased frequency of the droughts and severity of each new drought it is time to study these technologies further for the future of mankind.

Lance Winslow is a retired entrepreneur and is currently a consultant with The World Think Tank; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs