NATIONAL TURFGRASS EVALUATION PROGRAM UPDATE
Te National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) is designed to develop and coordinate uniform evaluation trials of turfgrass varieties and promising selections in the United States and Canada. Kevin Morris, NTEP executive director, reports, “At any one time NTEP is evaluating over 600 turfgrass cultivars and experimental selections in nationwide tests.” Te information gathered through this process helps turfgrass producers choose the varieties that will perform best in their growing area and under their management programs.
In the fall NTEP Newsletter, Morris announced, “Te latest turfgrass cultivar data, (from 2016) for all species is now available on the NTEP website. For the latest updates/modifications, go to:
http://www.ntep.org/contents2. shtml#latest. Keep watch for new data from 2017 as progress reports are completed and posted.”
Cool-Season Water Use Trials NTEP’s Fall newsletter also contained this report: “Our Cool-Season Water Use trial, in cooperation with the United States Golf Association (USGA), has been initiated at ten selected locations. Using a rainout shelter, five locations are measuring the actual amount of water needed by each entry during a 100-day drought period. Five additional locations (in regions where rainfall is less) are managing using either 80 percent, 60 percent or 40 percent of ET0
Online Database in Development In the Fall NTEP newsletter, Morris also reported, “NTEP started in 1980, with the first national turfgrass species trial (Kentucky bluegrass). Since then, NTEP has tested thousands of experimental and commercial turfgrass cultivars, of over 20 species, for use on lawns, golf courses, athletic fields, roadsides, parks and many other areas. Tis amounts to over 800,000 data records collected in the past 35 years (where a data record is defined as all the data collected in one year on a single plot of grass at one location).
With all this data, it is increasingly difficult to utilize the information to select cultivars, determine the best grass for various uses, and sort the data to compare entry performance. Terefore, to address these issues, as a part of a larger USDA grant, NTEP fine fescue data (to start), will be inserted in a database for further sorting and exploitation. Te grant, awarded to the University of Minnesota and other cooperating universities, describes the database portion of the project as such: “Our approach in the fourth objective will use 30 years of publicly available data in an innovative way to improve consumer turfgrass purchasing decisions for improved fine fescue cultivars.”
(reference evapotranspiration) for a 100- to
120-day period. After these ‘drought periods,’ irrigation is initiated to promote and measure recovery. Data is collected using a digital camera and light box, and the images are processed using digital image analysis software. Most locations initiated drought treatments in 2017 and these images will be analyzed, with the data from this analysis being available this year.” Te Lawn Institute is one of the organizations helping to fund this trial.
NTEP’s newsletter further stated, “A warm-season turfgrass version of this trial will be initiated in spring/ summer 2018. In addition, NTEP and USGA are talking with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop EPA Water Sense certified turfgrasses.”
On December 11, 2017, NTEP issued an email reporting, “NTEP is starting a new tall fescue trial in fall 2018. We need your help to make it successful, therefore, please go to the link below and complete the survey. Please tell us the type of tall fescue information you need, where we should test, and other thoughts about NTEP. You input is invaluable to us.” Te link:
http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/ a07eexe3j5hjb2ixuhm/a023zkjb2r1tz2/questions
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NTEP is a partner in this project … more information on the project can be found here in the Fine Fescue SCRI project summary. Te link:
https://cris.nifa.usda.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/0?path=fastlink1.
Much more information on NTEP trials and projects is available on the website:
http://www.ntep.org. If you have questions or comments, please contact NTEP Executive Director Kevin Morris at 301-504-5125, or send an email to
kmorris@ntep.org.
"NTEP has tested thousands of experimental and commercial turfgrass cultivars, of over 20 species, for use on lawns, golf
courses, athletic fields, roadsides, parks and many other areas."
TPI Turf News January/February 2018
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