Once William Pollock has finished with it, the grass will always be greener at the Wagga campus of Charles Sturt University.
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Over the past two years, Mr Pollock has been re-introducing native grasses to the campus, some of which have not been seen in the area for about a century, he said.
"We know these species can survive without water, it'll stay green," Mr Pollock said.
"Rejuvenating these herbaceous forbs and grasses is also reintroducing native wasps, flies and bees to the area."
With continued experimentation, he expects to reduce the university's enormous irrigation water usage substantially within the next five years.
Although the full extent of the university's water usage across its Wagga campus is not entirely known, Mr Pollock's estimation indicates up to 60 mega-litres per year is being spent on turf and gardens.
"It's anyone's guess how much [water] we use," Mr Pollock said.
"When the university is full, with all the student accommodation [at capacity], the university would probably be using about the same amount as a town like Gundagai."
To garner a better understanding of where the water is being used, the university has begun installing water metres across its older cottages, to determine if and when old pipes may lead to leakages.
Managing the sports fields will soon be done by automatic irrigation systems, with the university currently installing climate-reactive watering systems via its two on-campus weather stations.
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Since 2018, Mr Pollock has been managing the re-introduction of five different kinds of grass to the Valder Way entrance of the campus, growing over the area where the famed college cottages once stood.
As of October, Mr Pollock has been awarded a $10,000 'green grant' from the university, to extend the experiment to the other side of the campus.
Up to $6000 of the grant, Mr Pollock said, will be spent on seedlings while the remainder will be used to prepare the grounds.
By the end of five years, Mr Pollock expects there will be three hectares of native vegetation growing in islands across the area.
"We have to remove the turf so that there's less competition [so] we're targetting the areas where the turf is already dying or sick from fungus," Mr Pollock said.
"It's not going to be vast acres of bushlands, it will be drifts and blocks of native vegetation [between] the turf. It can work together if managed properly."
Mr Pollock admits the project represents what has been missing from the university's environmental strategy that sees hundreds of trees planted on campus each year.
"The trees go in but we don't know much about the grasses," Mr Pollock said.
With increased vegetation comes increased fire risk, especially in the rapid approach of summer. To manage the risk, Mr Pollock said, the grasses will be slashed and reduced during the warmer months.
At the moment, the ground covering has gone to flower and seed and will be left that way until the summer arrives.