Welcome to Grass Roots LIVE

Grass Roots Live is a unique interactive application enabling you to view current and historical water consumption data from ACTEW’s turf and irrigation research project.

Irrigation scheduling at Grass Roots is based on weekly evaporation and rainfall figures obtained from the Bureau of Meteorology (observations taken at Canberra Airport).

When evaporation is greater than rainfall, it creates a water deficit. This deficit is utilised in determining the water requirements of plants and is how turf water requirements at Grass Roots are determined.

Please note that irrigation data is collected weekly. After a rainfall event, the system is adjusted to reduce application volumes. These adjustments may not be visible until the following week.

Data collected throughout the life of the project will be used to help develop new benchmarks upon which water scheduling for other similar turf sites can be based.

Grass Roots Live enables you to select sections of the oval that combine five turf varieties with various irrigation methods, to view and compare water consumption data. By viewing our Turf Talk page, you can see how each turf variety is responding to various irrigation regimes.

How to use and get the most out of Grass Roots LIVE:

1. Click the button above to launch Grass Roots Live - you may be prompted to install the latest Flash Plug-in.

   Tip: when the Grass Roots Live window opens, press the F11 key to switch between normal and full-screen views.

   The interface is divided into three panels. There is no particular order in which you should view the information, however following the sequence below provides a good introduction to the application.

2. Interactive Oval represents each section of the oval. Sections numbered 1-5 represent five turf varieties. Sections lettered A-H represent four irrigation methods.

   Note: Control sections (labelled –c) are irrigated according to volumes traditionally used throughout the ACT.

   Click on a section to view the turf/irrigation combination, along with the water consumption data for the current week (values indicated represent the total for that week).

3. Last Five Weeks illustrates graphically the water consumption data for the selected section of turf over the previous five weeks, in addition to evaporation and rainfall data.

   Tip: hold the mouse over data points on the chart to view water consumption values.

4. Project Data allows you to select and compare data from each of the irrigation sections. Hold the mouse over the boxes and click to select or deselect a particular section. If a box is selected, the data for that section is displayed in the chart below. You can also choose to display evaporation and/ or rainfall data. Try out different combinations to see how they compare.

   For example, how much more water was applied this week using sprinklers at Section A, than using sub-surface drip irrigation at Section B?

   Tips:

   • the default view displays data from the previous five weeks. To view historical data, slide the handles situated above the chart to select the desired time period.
   • use the button labelled 'Show Data' if you would like to see the project data in numerical values, rather than as a chart.
     
     

5. Use our Turf Talk page or arrange a site visit to see how each turf variety is progressing under various irrigation regimes.