Local nurseries say they’re seeing an increase in business as spring sends gardeners out looking to replace trees and other plants that died in the drought.
At Gold Leaf Nursery in Anderson, Diane Biggie was on the hunt for a replacement for a maple tree that died in her yard.
The drought took its toll on her yard like it did with many other gardens across the state.
“Not good for them, because without that deep soil water they do not produce much.” (Photo: Nathan Solis/ Record Searchlight) Doug Campbell, owner of Gold Leaf Nursery, says a lot of people like Biggie are looking for replacement plants and trees now that there is available water.
“Then people say, ‘Oh, you know what?
I let my trees die.’ We’re getting a lot of people getting those crucial shade trees again.” Shasta College horticulture instructor Leimone Waite said a number of people stopped watering their lawns altogether during the drought.
He said he hopes people do not abandon the idea of drought-tolerant yards when the drought is officially declared over.
Hale’s landscape company, Garden Authority, has been busy in the past year as more people move toward drought-tolerant gardens.
The state’s turf rebate program paid homeowners to ditch their traditional lawns for drought-tolerant gardens.
That program totaled $20.8 million and is expected to end this December.

Dustin Johnson hopes to end drought for world No.
1 golfer has won the Masters Tournament.
“Obviously, I’m playing well coming into this week, so hopefully I can continue that success.
I’m looking forward to giving myself a chance to win on Sunday.” For that to happen, Johnson admits that his game will have to continue to be in top form.
“I’ve always liked the course – always thought it suits my game very well,” he said of Augusta National.
“It’s a tough golf course, and everything in your bag needs to be working for you to play well around here.
On Thursday and Friday, the National Weather Service is predicting winds of at least 20 mph.
Earlier this year, Clemson captured the NCAA football title, and Johnson’s alma mater (Coastal Carolina) won the 2016 NCAA baseball title.
“The (South Carolina) women won the other night, which was nice, and Coastal won baseball.” Johnson, a Gamecocks fan raised in Columbia, briefly paused before congratulating the football champions.
“I don’t think I’ll ever hear the end of that.” Masters Record Year Place Score Round Earnings 1 2 3 4 2016

Drought may be nearly over, but Californians are still saving water.
The State Water Resources Board announced Tuesday that urban Californians reduced water usage by 25.1 percent in February, compared with the state’s baseline year of 2013.
The February conservation results were substantially better than a year ago, when mandatory restrictions were in place for much of California but the savings rate was only 11.9 percent.
The overall savings rate has been 22.5 percent since mandatory conservation took effect in June 2015, even though the state water board significantly relaxed the rules last summer.
Under the old rules, municipal water districts had to cut usage by an average of 25 percent compared with 2013; districts with exceptionally heavy water consumption, including most in the Sacramento region, had to slash consumption by as much as 36 percent.
This was the same spot where Gehrke stood next to Brown in April 2015, with the ground completely bare, and Brown issued his mandatory conservation order.
Even if the drought is declared over, the state water board and other agencies are working on a long-term plan to permanently ban practices that are deemed wasteful, such as excessively watering lawns.
The plan is called “Making Water Conservation a California Way of Life.” Sign up Our Capitol Alert newsletter has updates on what’s new at California’s Capitol.
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Dale Kasler: 916-321-1066, @dakasler

New rice fights off drought.
Published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, the study reports that transgenic rice modified with a gene from the Arabidopsis plant yield more rice than unmodified rice when subjected to stress brought by natural drought.
RIKEN scientists and their collaborators tackled this issue by developing transgenic strains of rice that are more resistant to drought.
In previous work, RIKEN scientists showed that Arabidopsis plants express the AtGolS2 gene in response to drought and salinity stress.
"The Arabidopsis GolS2 gene was first identified with basic research at RIKEN," explains RIKEN scientist Fuminori Takahashi.
"Using it, we were able to improve resistance to drought-related stress, and increased the grain yield of rice in dry field conditions.
For this study, they created several lines of transgenic Brazilian and African rice that overexpress this gene, and with their CIAT and JIRCAS collaborators, tested how well the rice grew in different conditions in different years.
First, they grew the different rice lines in greenhouse conditions and showed that the modified Brazilian and African rice did indeed show higher levels of galactinol than the unmodified control rice.
Next, they tested tolerance to drought during the seedling growth period because this period often overlaps with seasonal drought.
Again, several of the transgenic strains showed higher grain yield under mild and severe natural drought.

Nissan Weaves an Epic Tale of a Drought-Ridden Village, a Rain Cloud and a Truck.
Editor’s Pick Two young farmers see their village suffering from drought and takes drastic action in a fantastical ad out of Brazil for the Nissan Frontier.
In the spot, by LewLara/TBWA, the men are despairing over their dried-up crops when one of them has a bright idea: although their village is parched, there’s a stubborn rain cloud around a nearby mountain that refuses to move.
They devise an ingenious scheme involving their Nissan Frontier truck, some ropes and a makeshift parachute that will eventually (via some cool visual effects by Clan VFX) bring a piece of cloud down to the village.
The film was directed by Rodrigo Saavedra via Landia, and filmed in a village in northeastern Brazil where it hadn’t rained for six years.
Just as a the final rain scene was about to be shot, it actually started raining.
Saavedra said in a statement; "4×4 and pick-up truck ads are generally all about power, all about being aggressive and tackling any terrain that comes your way.
What struck me about this film was the fact that it actually has quite an emotional story at it’s core.
It tells the story of two farmers struggling with a drought and then goes into a fantastic tale which nonetheless requires some extremely hard work from their Nissan Frontier."

Cholera is spreading in Somalia, further complicating drought relief efforts as the country teeters on famine.
Health officials are complaining about a lack of access to some areas due to security challenges.
“I think it is good for people to understand also this time of the year is not cholera season for Somalia.
So, we describe this as off-season and we are expecting in a few weeks’ time when the rain comes, probably the trend of cholera will be probably even double or triple,” said Abubakar.
The health agency says about 5.5 million people in Somalia are at risk of contracting waterborne diseases like cholera.
He said it is challenging to distribute medicines to two or five villages for a day and then get new cholera cases in 10 villages.
“We are struggling, and we are trying to do what we can do, but what is hampering the control of outbreak is access; many of the locations in Somalia are inaccessible, and we are finding it very difficult to do the control measures," he said.
Aid agencies are getting access to central Somalia, and other parts of the country except for southern regions where al-Shabab is in control.
In those regions there have been 950 cases of cholera and 80 deaths since the beginning of the year.
More than six million Somalis, half the population, need food, water and medical assistance.

At the March meeting of Metropolitan’s Special Committee on the Bay Delta, committee members heard the plan for bringing the California Water Fix project before the board for a decision and an update on the pending Delta Plan amendment process currently underway at the Delta Stewardship Council.
“The decision is really to support moving forward on Cal Water Fix, based on the cost allocation, based on the financing, and based on the benefits that it would provide to Metropolitan,” he said.
“The Delta Plan and the Stewardship Council’s activity in managing the Delta Plan is to make sure that all of the various agencies and all of the actions move towards meeting this overall vision for the Delta, including the policies and recommendations that are in the Delta Plan.” Since its adoption, the Delta Plan has been amended to refine performance measures, and to allow for single-year water transfers to proceed without having to certify consistency with the Delta Plan.
“The State Water Contractors comment in that regard is that the existing cost sharing is what should continue on and that is, currently there is a 75% cost share that is supposed to sunset in 2018, and the contractors are weighing in and saying that should continue to happen and it should go back to the normal 50% cost share from the state in terms of maintenance and levee subventions.” During the discussion period, Director Murray asked for further clarification on the state’s cost share for Delta levee funding.
“As the California Water Fix has been moving forward, the Stewardship Council has been talking about how do they now go through their decision making process, given that it’s no longer a Bay Delta Conservation Plan, it’s now a proposed California Water Fix,” he said.
It deals with not only the facilities themselves related to Cal Water Fix, but operations and storage and how the three of those work together.” “The amendments would promote options for new and improved conveyance including dual conveyance, and that’s what California Water Fix is by definition,” Mr. Arakawa said.
As the Delta Plan got finalized, there was a view by many water users that it seemed to be moving towards, ‘you have to reduce your take from the Delta out over time,’ and there were others that argue that the definition that was included in the legislation meant that through your investments in conservation, local water supply including recycled water and other types of supply management actions that could occur locally, you’re reducing your reliance on the Delta out into the future, that it would otherwise be if those investments didn’t occur.
That EIR would include the aspects of the Delta Levee Investment Strategy, the Delta conveyance, storage, and operations amendment, and then the companion performance measures that go along with it that make up the Delta Plan.” “We continue to work with the contractors, we continue to attend the meetings and comment when our interests are involved and we plan on keeping you updated on where things are and what the outcomes,” concluded Mr. Arakawa.
“One of the key areas of focus has been should the flows that they develop for standards in the Delta be based on this term called unimpaired flow,” said Mr. Arakawa.
And fact, there really ought to be focus on what functional flows are necessary for fish protection, how much habitat, how much water, and what’s the timing of that.” “As the State Water Board has proposed to go forward and set flows, they’ve used percentage of unimpaired flow as the mechanism,” he continued.

BLOG ROUND-UP: Bloggers on the snow survey, Delta tunnels polling, DWR dams and spillway repairs, San Joaquin River restoration, flood improvements, and more ….
Water, water everywhere but not a drop to waste: Anna Wearn writes, “The results are in: California’s snowpack is 164% of average, according to the latest Sierra Nevada snow survey.
… ” Read more from the NRDC Switchboard blog here: Water, water everywhere but not a drop to waste Public Policy Institute of California: 77% of Californians Think Governor’s California WaterFix is Important to the State’s Future: Californians for Water Security write: “This week, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) published a poll which highlights that 77 percent of Californians view Governor Jerry Brown’s California WaterFix as “important.” In fact, 51 percent think it is “very important.” The poll, which appeared in the report “Californians & Their Government,” also specifies that the majority of California residents in favor of water infrastructure improvements, in the aftermath of winter storms, flooding and the crisis at Oroville Dam.
According to the latest PPIC statewide survey, 61% of Californians say that more spending on water and flood management infrastructure is very important for their part of California.
The Yuba County Water Agency played a key role in helping manage the Oroville Dam spillway challenges earlier this year by coordinating its releases on the Yuba River with the California Department of Water Resources (DWR).
… ” Read more from the Water Wired blog here: Another groundwater case for SCOTUS?
Rodney Smith writes, “Hydrowonk gratefully received an invitation to attend the Salton Sea Tour sponsored by the Water Education Foundation on March 16th, the day the Natural Resources Agency released a 10-Year Plan for habitat and dust suppression projects in the Salton Sea.
Given that none of them has ever shown enthusiasm for state environmental protection, it’s possible whether their rule concern is federalism or deregulation.
It’s difficult, however, to see a case for a wholesale abrogation of federal authority in favor of the states.
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SAN JOSE (KRON) — The San Jose City Council has declared an end to a citywide water supply shortage.
At the same time, homeowners will be able to keep their lawns green too.
Reflecting improved water supply conditions from unusually heavy rains this past winter, the San Jose City council has halted the 20 percent cutbacks on water use imposed last year, which means there are no longer any restrictions on days residents may water their lawns or landscapes.
“Yes, people can water their lawns and plant their vegetable gardens, but be very careful on how you plan your sprinkler systems so it waters early in the morning or later in the evening,” Director of Communications at City of San Jose Dave Vossbrink said.
That means no outdoor irrigation between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. without the use of a bucket, handheld container or hose with a shutoff nozzle.
And there will be more water for city parks.
That means no outdoor irrigation between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. without the use of a bucket, hand-held container, or hose with a shutoff nozzle.
Broken or leaking sprinkler heads, water pipes, and irrigation system must be repaired within five working days.
Later this week, the Governor’s office will provide more details about water restrictions.

Long story – there are still some big deficits across the area.
Parts of southern New England are running 20-30″ rainfall deficits over this time, which is a gigantic number.
Boston saw at or below average precipitation for most of the cold season months.
But we were close enough during a time of low evaporation and low usage to start making up ground.
The next storm arrives on Thursday with minimal to zero sunshine in between to help dry things out, and this follow-up storm is a more potent one.
Considering how wet the ground will already be, there will be a larger opportunity for river and basement flooding Thursday into Friday.
Last year there was pretty much nothing to melt during the spring.
In fact, flooding is likely going to be an issue in the short-term with all the rainfall coming this week and snowmelt taking place.
Still a whole lot of snow across northern New England.
Will we have drought issues this spring?