UC Davis: One Grand Campus

Kevin Burrows, Regional Editor

Sixty-year-old cork oaks line the 2007 PGMS Grand Award winning campus streets of UC Davis. Many of the oaks were planted during WWII due to fears that the United States would run out of cork because of fighting in European countries where the tree natively grows.

Nearly 2 million visitors walk the grounds of UC Davis each year ?EUR??,,????'??? not counting the student population of 40,000. The largest public university in California, its 2007 PGMS Grand Award-winning campus is renowned for its architecture and picturesque scenery.

In spite of its total acreage, not to mention its importance as a cultural gathering place, the grounds crew has to make due with a budget of $6 million, ($4 million going toward labor) that has declined by 10 percent since 2000. With 80 staff members, the consolidation of the university?EUR??,,????'???s grounds department and industrial services has eliminated duplicate shop, digging, hardscape, and repair functions. This has allowed the grounds crew to keep more projects in-house, saving the university hundreds of thousands of dollars.

With an equipment budget of $850,000, the UC Davis stable of machines is quite extensive. Two full-time, in-house mechanics maintain street sweepers, 10 large riding mowers, Toro recycling mowers, reel mowers for the sports fields (shown here), as well as backpack blowers. Much larger equipment such as tractors, chippers, backhoes, and tree trucks are also utilized and maintained by the grounds staff.

The Landscaping Brain Trust

Superintendent of Landscape ?EUR??,,????'??+ Cary Avery has had a 22 year career at UC Davis. He oversees landscape maintenance for sports turf, central campus, housing, rural campus, the arboretum and campus trees. He recently became one of only 110 CGM (Certified Grounds Managers) in the U.S., a qualification developed and conferred by the PGMS.

Grounds Operations Superintendent ?EUR??,,????'??+ Steve Nixon began his 28-year career at UC Davis as a groundskeeper and worked his way up through the ranks to his current position. Nixon manages all campus roads and pathways including road painting, signage, small masonry and concrete construction projects. He also oversees all recycling and irrigation operations, mowing, sweeping, tree trimming, waste removal, and outdoor event services.

The UC Davis landscaping crew focuses their efforts on around 1,000 total acres within campus. With $75,000 budgeted for seed and plant material, high profile acres of turf, such as this area near the famous Egghead sculptures, are intensively landscaped.

Turf

Within the UC Davis campus, 200 high profile acres of turf are intensively landscaped. Hybrid Bermuda is mainly used on the intercollegiate baseball, soccer and practice fields. The intramural fields are comprised of a mixture of fescue, common Bermuda and bluegrass. These fields are overseeded with rye in late September, before being transitioned out in early June. ?EUR??,,????'??The campus mowing cycle occurs twice a week with a four person crew,?EUR??,,????'?? said Avery. ?EUR??,,????'??Sports fields are also mowed generally twice a week and again before each game.?EUR??,,????'??

Trees

UC Davis is filled with over 17,000 trees, 9,000 of which can be found in the main campus. Redwood is the most dominant, but many oaks and Chinese hackberry trees are also abundant. Olive trees existed long before the school was founded, and their hardiness allowed them to survive the school?EUR??,,????'???s early years without irrigation. They have long been seen as an annoyance because for many years their dropped olives created hazardous conditions on the paths below. Then in 2005 the university took a sustainable approach and began harvesting them for olive oil production. ?EUR??,,????'??Davis is a focused community and a very green thinking town,?EUR??,,????'?? said grounds operations superintendent, Steve Nixon. It would be a disaster to remove the olive trees even though they were a nuisance. Today they are maintained as an integral part of the campus inventory.?EUR??,,????'??

With about 25 acres of display beds, the landscaping team spends a great deal of time caring for lavender, perennial grasses, blue fescue, purple fountain, and pink molly, to name a few. The growth stock shifted a great deal in 2000 when drought resistant perennials were introduced. This was a major shift away from the landscaping that was done for decades, which had a very low cost-per-square-foot. The newer plantings, while more expensive have been much more efficient in terms of water usage.

Chemicals

With a budget of $65,000 for chemicals and fertilizers, pesticides are used sparingly on the ecologically friendly campus. Groundskeepers have been using an organic fertilizer containing sulfur and gypsum the past three springs as an alternative to spraying. However, while chemicals are not widely used, some areas do warrant applications. Merit for example, is sprayed on a few turf areas in the spring and a broad-spectrum systemic pesticide is used on targeted trees in early February.

Irrigation

Linked to a weather station, the Rain Master computer irrigation system is connected to 157 of the 230 satellite controllers found throughout the grounds. These controllers operate 4,000 valves or stations, as well as around 40,000 sprinklers ranging from bubblers to rotors. ?EUR??,,????'??The campus is investing in technology that reduces our need for electricity, and this happened to be a water efficiency that we felt was worthwhile,?EUR??,,????'?? said Avery. ?EUR??,,????'??Currently operating at 70 percent, it will be fully functional by the fall of ?EUR??,,????'??07 and at 100 percent by spring of ?EUR??,,????'???08.?EUR??,,????'??

A groundskeeper climbs on of the many oaks found throughout the campus to trim any dead or dangerous branches, To ensure worker safety UC Davis employs a safety officer who holds weekly and all-hand monthly safety meetings. ?EUR??,,????'??The presence of trees in an urban landscape can be dangerous. If trees aren?EUR??,,????'???t deadwooded every 5 years, they can injure someone. If a bush at an intersection is not trimmed down, it can cause an accident. You can?EUR??,,????'???t defer landscape maintenance,?EUR??,,????'?? said Sal Genito, director of the buildings and grounds division.

Improving Technology

Constantly striving to improve efficiency, UC Davis has added the use of GPS technology to measure and report daily productivity of mowers, trash haulers, and sweepers. Used to track workload rather than give location, it measures exactly how much area is mowed and how much fuel is used. Furthermore, it gives irrefutable data for budgeting requests.

After initial hesitation, workers have embraced the technology. ?EUR??,,????'??All and all we?EUR??,,????'???ve made a firm commitment to validate our workload, not the people,?EUR??,,????'?? said Avery. While GPS is newer technology, and not a silver bullet that will solve all landscape challenges, it is the latest of many technological advancements that the forward thinking UC Davis crew is utilizing to push grounds management forward.