Nebraska Extension in Scotts Bluff County

Jim Schild and Gary Stone, Extension Educators, Scotts Bluff County

The single biggest use of water in the average western Nebraska household is irrigating the Kentucky bluegrass lawn.

But there are two alternative turfs that allow homeowners to manage water more efficiently: tall fescue, a cool-season grass, and buffalograss, a warm-season grass. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

Tall fescue can use more water than bluegrass, but its advantage is a deep, extensive root system, which can extend as deep as 2 ½ to 3 feet in western Nebraska soils. The effective rooting depth for Kentucky bluegrass is 6 to 8 inches.

The crop research plots at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center on the edge of Scottsbluff occupy several hundred acres, altogether. Some of the plots are an acre or less in size, some are dozens of acres.

Among the sugarbeets, dry edible beans, corn, wheat, sunflowers and various alternative crops, is a small patch of pepper plants.

It’s not the peppers that researchers are interested in, but the thin sheets of mulch that cover the ground around each row of plants.

These thin plastic sheets are a new type of biodegradable mulch under development by 3M. Biodegradable mulch is commonly called biomulch because the plastic is made from polylactic acid (PLA), derived from corn, not petroleum.