What could a Shire do if they have too little fresh water, too much saline ground water, and need to create a beautiful looking Shire with great lawns and the lot?
Like other towns in the WA (Australia) grain belt, Wagin would like to reduce use of fresh water resources on public parks and gardens and instead use saline ground water. Within this town three bores are pumping and disposing up to 650 kilolitres per day to a nearby salt lake to de-water areas of the town threatened by rising groundwater.
Saltgrass (Distichlis Spicata)
This led to Mr Ghazi Abu Rumman’s PhD study under the supervision of Associate Professor Tim Colmer (School of Plant Biology) on the use of salt-tolerant halophytic grasses as turf in the wheat belt. Halophyte literally means “salt-loving” plants. These plants grow naturally in salt-affected soils.
Results in Mr Abu Rumman’s field based research found that salt-tolerant grasses can be irrigated with the saline groundwater which saves potable water. Four turfgrass species, Distichlis spicata (saltgrass), Sporobolus virginicus (marine couch), Paspalum vaginatum (seashore paspalum) and Pennisetum clandestinum (kikuyu) were tested, the halophytic turfgrass species performed well under saline irrigation.
Marine couch was slow growing so it would be better suited to low-traffic applications such as landscaping. The traditional turf variety, kikuyu, and only non halophytic grass, did not cope well with saline irrigation. Kikuyu performed well under fresh water irrigation. According to
Marine Couch (Sporobolus Virginicus)
Mr Abu Rumman, they recently conducted further glasshouse experiments to find out the salinity threshold of the four species. “We tested the performance of those species under five different salt levels, but it is still too early to report on the results at this stage”, he said.
Mr Abu Rumman’s work will be applied and tested within the Shire of Wagin. The Shire will use the new turf types in the development of one park because they will achieve much better results and be able to irrigate with the groundwater. UWA works closely with the turf industry.
(Institute of Agriculture, Number 6, December 2008, The University of Western Australia, pp. 9).
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