SPECIAL FOCUS - TURF SEED: Seeds of Change

Every five years, a certain species of turf seed has its day. This year, when perennial ryegrass is called up for its National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP), breeders will bring scores of new and old varieties to testing sites where seedlings can sprout and shine – and be subjected to a myriad of stresses, such as drought conditions, winter kill and insect and disease damage.

Though new turf seed varieties are researched and developed under ideal laboratory conditions, the true test of a new cultivar comes during NTEP and other national, regional and university trials. If varieties get good marks in these venues, breeders can confidently bring their products to market where contractors can benefit from their demonstrated improvements.

“Climates change and conditions change – there are always negative aspects to an environment, so we’re always breeding new grasses to adapt to those things,” explains Devish Singh, research director, Barenbrug USA, Tangent, Ore. “There are always challenges ahead of you. New diseases appear or existing diseases change strains, the use of recycled or reclaimed water increases – you have to keep up with all of that, which is why turfgrass advancements are so important.”

As such, turfgrass breeders are continually striving to create varieties that will be sustainable in stressful environments. Currently, salt, wear and drought tolerance are driving the research and development for many producers.

PASS THE SALT. A little salt is good for turf, such as in fertilizer applications that help lawns become fuller and better established. But too much salty fertilizer can burn up turf, as well as too much salt – as in excess deicing material, which contractors in northern states know all to well. Moreover, as water restrictions tighten up around the country, many states and counties are turning to reclaimed or recycled irrigation water, which often includes residue from both fertilizer and road salt, not to mention a plethora of other saline scoundrels.

“Right now, one characteristic that a lot of companies are emphasizing in their grasses is salt tolerance because we’re using more effluent water,” says Leah Brilman, research director, Seed Research of Oregon, Corvallis, Ore. “It’s becoming more important in the grasses used for overseeding and in grasses used for permanent turf because we’re having to use more marginal water sources.”

Singh notes a couple of different approaches to breeding salt-tolerant species. “We may apply a salt treatment in laboratory situations – maybe by trying to grow grass in salty water – and then we select it that way,” he explains. “Or we also have a university colleague who is working on using city water that is high in salt and applying it to turf plots. In both of those situations, we’ll continue to cross the varieties that do well and develop a new variety that has both salt tolerance and good turf quality.”

Maintaining quality – as in, good density, uniformity and texture – is key when developing a new turfgrass variety, Singh says. “For instance, there are some grasses like salt grass or alkali grass that are very salt tolerant, but don’t have a lot of turf quality,” he explains. “But tufted hairgrass is a new turf species that is salt tolerant, but also has very good turf quality, so it works out quite well.”
 
ALL DRIED UP. Going hand-in-hand with salt tolerance is drought tolerance for turfgrass species in areas where water restrictions apply. “There’s a high level of importance in this area with the scarcity of water in several of our metropolitan areas and the urban areas around them,” Singh explains.

Brilman adds that some research into drought tolerance has gone toward warm-season grasses. “Bermudagrass has much more salt and drought tolerance than many of our cool-season grasses, so in areas where drought or water usage is a real concern, these need less water,” she says. “You may not have them green quite as long during the year, but you can really reduce the amount of water used in a year and you can have them much further north than before.”

Singh explains that breeding for drought tolerance is often as easy as providing the different varieties with less water and seeing which ones thrive. Along those lines, Brilman adds that contractors must consider how the turf is managed if they’re looking at different varieties at a turfgrass trial.

“If you start looking for varieties that are developed for better drought tolerance, these might not look as good if people are practicing high maintenance in those trials and irrigating and all of that,” Brilman explains. “They’ll look better in trials that are really looking at drought stress and providing less irrigation. Overall, you have to identify the level of management at the trial and see which ones are performing best at that level.”

WEAR IT WELL. Speaking of performance, when coaches and fans head to a sporting event with their teams, it’s often the athletes’ performances that are measured more than that of the turf. However, turf varieties that are “wear tolerant” or perform well in high traffic areas like sports fields and parks are of great interest to breeders right now.

“The more we examine wear, the more we realize that it’s really complex and how the turf will perform depends on when your wear is going to be applied, what sport is going on, etc.,” Brilman explains. “Little kid soccer players will put tons of wear from little feet over a field many times during a day. In other areas where football is more common and people stop playing at a certain time of year, it may be a different sort of wear pattern that we need to simulate on wear machines.”

Singh agrees. “Even on high school playing fields or city parks, when you have a lot of people walking around or football players wearing cleats and tearing up the grass, having high-wear turf is important,” he says, adding that maintaining quality is important in this area, as well.

“These grasses have to maintain a good playing surface all the time,”Singh continues. “ Sometimes people don’t like to use tall fescue because it grows in clumps and doesn’t provide a uniform playing surface, so at the same time that you’re looking for wear tolerance, you’re looking for something that has to be playable.”

Brilman notes that tall fescues, perennial ryegrasses and bluegrasses are all subjects of current research on wear tolerance. In many cases, the traffic and compaction of sports fields and the like is simulated by pulling a machine fitted with two cleated drums over the playing area. Many seed producers work directly with universities for sports field access.

With seed research and development going on in so many areas, new varieties are becoming available all the time, though varieties new to the market have been in testing phases for years. “We figure that if everything goes right and we’re not starting with something that’s not very well adapted to a certain characteristic already, it takes probably six to seven years to bring a variety to market, and even longer for species like Kentucky bluegrasses that are harder to breed,” Brilman says, though she notes that all that time and energy produces an important result. “We’re coming up with new varieties all the time that have better density, color and resistance than what was planted in lawns even 10 years ago,” she explains.

Knowing that, contractors may want to take a look at their clients’ lawns and consider freshening up the turf with new, more resistant species. Doing so can show clients that their lawn and landscape professionals are well informed on new turf care options and keeps the greenest grass on their side of the fence.

The author is associate editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@gie.net.