California’s irrigated pasturelands—including valley, foothill, and mountain meadow pastures— account for nearly 500,000 acres across the state, and ranks third among agricultural water users. Water scarcity issues for these integrated systems will likely increase with predicted increases in drought frequency, severity, and extent—as well as growing water demands from high value crops, urban, and environmental uses. 

Irrigated pastures in northern and central California provide critical summer forage for livestock. In many cases, water is diverted directly from small streams and transported to pastures for flood irrigation. These stream diversion irrigation systems have the potential to impact downstream water quality by: 1) reduction of in-stream flow volumes; and 2) return of pasture tailwater to the stream, carrying pollutants to the stream.

We examined the potential for a functioning wetland and a degraded-channelized wetland to filter pollutants from irrigated pasture runoff at the UC Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center near Browns Valley, California.

Irrigation management determines soil moisture status and depth to water table on irrigated meadows. Compared to grasses and clovers, sedges and rushes have low forage quality for livestock. Most high forage quality grasses and clovers cannot survive on sites with prolonged saturation (e.g., high water table)

This application is a nitrogen and irrigation management planning tool for irrigated pastures and an educational tool for assisting California growers in completing a Irrigation and Nitrogen Management Plan.