Schools : Students Getting to the Roots of Irrigation Problem

No one could blame the 33 undergraduates in Joe Hung’s drip-irrigation class for stopping to smell the chick lupine. After all, they will be knee-deep in it for the next month.

Chick lupine is a fragrant wildflower currently in bloom at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, where Prof. Hung’s class is working to design a state-of-the-art irrigation system to replace the garden’s 1951 model.

The Cal Poly Pomona students, part of the school’s renowned agricultural engineering department, have their work cut out for them. The Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden is currently watered by the Edsel of irrigation systems.

Development director Richard Chute said the garden’s 86 acres rely on an inefficient and rotting system of metal pipes that spring leaks, operate as if all plants were created with equal thirsts and must be shut down completely when making repairs.

The goals for the new system are water- and cost-efficiency, water delivery that can be adjusted to meet various species’ needs and the ability to make repairs without having to shut down the whole system.

Ten student teams, which began working on the project last month, are now submitting their designs. The best design will be installed later this year.

The designs will be up to the students. “They have complete freedom,” Chute said. “They don’t have to use our old plans.” Chute said working with Cal Poly Pomona not only gives the garden “a lot of free engineering” but also allows the nonprofit organization, which is independent of the university, to fulfill its educational mission.

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden was founded in 1927 and is one of only two botanical gardens in California specializing in native plants.