Watching grass grow, exciting?

Casey Reynolds

There’s nothing exciting about the job of evaluating the performance of the hundreds of different varieties of turfgrasses.

But hey, somebody’s got to do it, right?

In North Carolina that somebody is Casey Reynolds, with help from graduate student James Rutledge. And while Reynolds can’t say that each day on the job brings new and surprising developments, he’s aware and proud that the service he and Rutledge perform is vital to the turfgrass industry.

Reynolds is one of many people evaluating turfgrass plots at locations across the country (generally land grant universities). This small group of evaluators report annual results to the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP), headquartered in Beltsville, MD. That’s where NTEP leader Kevin Morris and his tiny staff collect and turn this mountain of data into reports made available to anybody seeking the best grass for their particular region and conditions.

As dry as the process seems to the layman, evaluating hundreds of commercially available and experimental turfgrasses is fascinating in its own way, says Reynolds, who grades plots at the research farm near the NCSU campus in Raleigh and the Sand Hills Research Station, in the southeast part of the state. NCSU also conducts trials, both national and regional, in the mountainous western part of the state.

Basically, what Reynolds and the other evaluators do is walk hundreds of 6-by-6-ft. turfgrass plots, each containing a different variety of turfgrass, and record what they see in terms of several dozen varietal characteristics – color, spring greenup, resistance to stresses such as insects, diseases, drought being just a few of things they grade. They use a scale of 1-10; the higher the number, the better the performance of the turfgrass. A grade of “5” signifies “minimally acceptable,” says Reynolds, admitting that their ratings are, by the nature of the process, are subjective.

Each turfgrass trial, regardless of species, lasts five years. Then it is removed with the soil being tilled and fumigated to prevent contamination of any unwanted species, and a new trial comprised of 6-by-6-ft. plots, each separated by a 1-ft. alley, is established. That’s when seed breeders and marketers introduce new varieties to compare against those already in the market.

Seeded varieties are hand seeded, with the seed being measured to the gram so that each plot gets exactly the same rate. Workers literally get on their hands and knees to hand sprig the vegetative varieties. In many cases, seeded plots get a breathable turf cover or are hydro-mulched to help them get established.

Once the plants are established and growing they are maintained under defined programs with each maintenance regimen approximating “real world” conditions, says Reynolds. The evaluations begin the season following establishment and continue for the next four years.

This year Reynolds is evaluating 160 varieties of tall fescue, 42 Bermudagrass entries, 120 Kentucky bluegrass plots, 30 varieties of zoysiagrass and an equal number of bentgrass trials.

Evaluators at other land grant universities across the country — from Hawaii to Maine — have just as many plots of turfgrass to grade and add to the NTEP data that is collected, tabulated and made available for all to see at www.ntep.org.

— Editor’s note: Reynolds spoke at the Southern Sports Turf Seminar, which took place at Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC. The seminar was sponsored by Bayer Environmental Sciences.