UF/IFAS professor earns grant for turfgrass research

The grants were announced Oct. 5 by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

Kevin Kenworthy, an associate professor of agronomy with the UF/IFAS agronomy department, received $4.4 million to study drought resistance in certain turfgrasses.

 

Kenworthy will work with scientists at Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, North Carolina State and the University of Georgia to further test warm season turfgrasses for their water requirements and ability to persist under long-term drought conditions. 

These turfgrasses responded favorably to short-term drought in a previous USDA-funded project involving the same universities, Kenworthy said.

 

“Our newly funded project will involve input from turfgrass breeders, plant physiologists, turfgrass management specialists, turfgrass Extension specialists, economists and statisticians, and it will provide information relative to these advanced lines for their sod and weed management practices,” Kenworthy said. “A significant component of the project will involve Extension efforts to learn more about what the industry understands regarding drought responses of turf, what traits are most important to end users and the development of educational tools to inform the industry about new drought-resistant turfgrasses that may become commercially available from this project.”