Turf breeding advances continue
5 Jul, 2007 By: Daniel G. Jacobs LM Direct!ROLLESVILLE, NC — We visited the Scotts Turf-Seed and Pure Seed 25th Field Day recently on a cool, overcast morning with a threat of rain that never materialized. Figuring that North Carolina in mid June would be toasty, many of dressed in shorts and later regretted that choice. Field Day guest, Mike Richardson, from the University of Arkansas, who discussed work on dormant seeding of Bermudagrass, wryly commented on the advisability of listening to someone who didn’t have sense enough to check weather reports before getting dressed in the morning.
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The University of Arkansas's Mike Richardson
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Working on some Bermudagrass projects, Richardson and his team noticed that some seeds germinated after they’d sat through the winter. They’d actually been planted for a different project. Like many discoveries this one was, at least, partially an accident. Or as Richardson put it, “Sometimes the obvious is really hard for us to see.”
That’s when his team began to look at dormant seeding and found that February and March are a good time to plant Bermudagrass seeds, said Richardson. Dormant seeding is of particular use in sports fields, which get a lot of use during the warmer weather.
That was just one of many fascinating insights into turfgrass breeding and adaptation that surfaced during a morning-long event at the company’s research facility, located near Raleigh.
If you’re ever fortunate enough to visit a turfgrass research station or the turfgrass trials in your state, you will immediately see that the turfgrasses in some of the rectangular plots are a darker shade of green than others (We Americans value a dark, rich green.), some more dense than others, some doesn’t mind going without a whole lot of water and some, well, is just down right ugly. These are usually the checks or, in some cases, varieties that just don’t have what it takes.
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Visitors learned about the new trials, seeded last fall, of all the major cool-season turf species (and a couple of warm-season species) during the event.
While most of the world looks for ways to stop or at least stave off turf diseases like brown patch and gray leaf spot, Cystal Rose-Fricker, president, and Melodee Fraser, director of research – east for Pure Seed Testing, do their best to induce them. And whether they are perennial ryegrasses, fine fescues or Kentucky bluegrasses, the ultimate goal is to help those looking to prevent diseases from destroying lawns and athletic fields around the country.
The company’s newest perennial ryegrass varieties have very good gray leaf spot resistance and summer turf performance, largely because of the selection work done in Rolesville, explained the two. Also, researchers there have been readying Kentucky bluegrass varieties that retain their color even after a few weeks without any water.
Rolesville is nestled quietly (the town has all of three traffic lights) near Raleigh. It’s location in the so-called turfgrass transition zone (where weather conditions aren’t conducive to either warm or cool-season turfgrass species) provides researchers with an excellent place to test numerous varieties for both residential and golf course use.
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