NEWS
MARCH 4, 2013
MONDAY
PAGE 3
THE DAILY TITAN
O.C. mass honors Pope’s last day
ANIBAL ORTIZ / For the Daily Titan Hundreds of church-goers attended a special mass honoring Pope Benedict XVI of the Roman Catholic Church at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange on Thursday. Benedict served as pope for eight years since his election in April 2005 before resigning on Thursday.
Professor examines hydraulic systems in plants Lanscape services seek technology to make water and plant systems efficient LAUREN DAVIS Daily Titan
Jochen Schenk, Ph.D., a biological science professor at Cal State Fullerton, is researching air bubbles that plants get in their hydraulic system to see how plants survive in dry environments to help farmers irrigate their crops more efficiently. “Plants have hydraulic systems that actually operate under negative pressure, basically under solar energy, that sucks water literally out of the ground,” said Schenk. He said the purpose of plant hydraulic systems is to find out how plants manage to survive when they are running out of water and air is entering their systems. CSUF Landscape Services are trying to improve the efficiency of the campus’ water and plant systems as well. Steven Dugas, Landscape Services manager at CSUF, said updated materials are used when
water systems on campus need replacing. “We tend to use the newer technology as well as utilize plant materials that are more mediterranean-style climate,” said Dugas. Joel Abraham, Ph.D., a biological science professor, said there are many benefits of having plants on campus; the first benefit is that plants release oxygen and the second concerns how plants take in pollutants. “Having a lot of plants near Fullerton’s campus actually increases our air quality,” said Abraham. “They also do a number of things in terms of shading that helps regulate temperatures in buildings and in terms of aesthetic value.” Dugas said landscape services also uses drought-tolerant type plants because they are better adapted to the natural climate and do not depend on supplemental irrigation. However, he said there could be better ways how the campus utilizes its source of water; this could include using reclaimed water instead of domestic water for irrigation. “If we had the opportunity to access reclaimed water for irriga-
JOHN PEKCAN / Daily Titan
Water flows through the Arboretum on Sunday afternoon. The running water source is a luxury for the Arboretum as water is scarce in Southern California.
tion purposes, I think we would be better served in terms of water conservation as well,” Dugas said. Schenk agreed, adding that the
more practical reasons behind plant-water relations is irrigation. He added that 80 percent of the fresh water used throughout Cali-
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fornia is used for irrigation, agriculture and landscaping. “We don’t have enough water in our climate, so there is a very prac-
tical reason for studying plantwater relations and just reduce irrigation and make it much more reasonable,” Schenk said.
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