How to Use This Guide

Landscape Management's 2006 Pocket Seed Guide is available for download in PDF format (requires the free Acrobat Reader). The guide was originally published as a supplement to the August 2006 issue of Landscape Management magazine.

The guide is an easy-to-use reference summary of the latest results from the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP). It lists the latest top-rated varieties of turfgrass at most testing locations. It also provides valuable information such as turfgrass quality, color, density, resistance to diseases and insects and tolerance to heat, cold and drought.

Be aware that this guide lists only those varieties being commercially produced. The complete NTEP results include both experimental and commercially available varieties.

NTEP is one of the most widely known turfgrass research programs in the world. The information that it provides is regularly referenced by turfgrass professionals such as golf course superintendents, lawn care operators and landscape contractors. It’s also valuable for government entities, colleges and schools, park departments and, in fact, anybody who is serious about producing and maintaining beautiful, environmentally sound turfgrass.

How NTEP works

NTEP evaluates 17 turfgrass species at test sites across the United States and Canada.

University researchers, using standard procedures and formats on a regular basis, inspect each variety for various criteria at their respective test sites.

Results in this guide reflect ratings for the 2004 growing season. Most of these inspections are visual and are expressed on a scale of 1 to 9 —1 being "dead" turf and 9 being "ideal."

The cooperators send their scores to NTEP where they are computer formatted and statistically analyzed. Generally, the results become available to the public and industry starting in mid to late spring each year.

To estimate turfgrass quality, NTEP uses three replications for each variety at each of the sites. Typically, tests for each species run for five years before they are repeated. This gives the turfgrass seed industry the opportunity to introduce new cultivars to the program and to see how they perform — relative to the others in the test — in different geographic areas and under a variety of environmental and management conditions.

The efforts of a very small number turfgrass breeders feed this continuous cycle of testing and are responsible for ongoing improvements to our economically and environmentally essential turfs.