NMSU passes $1 million in NuMex Sahara royalties
13 Oct, 2006 By: Darrell Pehr Athletic Turf NewsA recent ceremony at NMSU's Fabian Garcia Research Center recognized the $1 million mark in royalties generated from sales of an NMSU-developed grass seed. Arden A. Baltensperger, now professor emeritus of agronomy in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics’ Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, bred the unique grass, NuMex Sahara, in 1987.
Baltensperger, who led NMSU's agronomy department for 12 years, received a $90,000 grant in 1985 from USGA to fund his Bermudagrass breeding program.
"The funds were used for much-needed graduate student pay, operations and national variety evaluation, which speeded the release of NuMex Sahara, one of the first improved, seed-propagated Bermudagrass varieties," Baltensperger said. NMSU's Agricultural Experiment Station released the new variety to Pennington/Seeds West in 1987. Seed production and sales started in 1990. Royalties from the sales of the variety are split evenly between NMSU and USGA.
"The success of NuMex Sahara stimulated research and development of seeded Bermudagrass by universities and commercial companies, and now more than two dozen Bermuda varieties are available," Baltensperger said. A variety also developed at NMSU, Princess 77, is being used on the NMSU football field and was used on the fields for several Super Bowls. "This is an example of very successful university and industry cooperation," he said.
Please send any technical comments or questions to our webmaster.