As of mid-May, it looks like we will have pretty good production out of the 2024 crop. Acreage is down significantly across all species and will allow the industry to recover from the surpluses built up from the post-Covid demand decline. As usual in long markets, the good seed will ship first leaving those who wait to buy potentially looking at less desirable seed. I am projecting that 2025 is when we will start to see a stabilization and potentially an increase in pricing. In the meantime, we will likely see larger spreads between sod quality and slightly off quality seeds.
JONATHAN GREEN, INC. Provided by Bruce Rose, Cascade International Seed Company, and Barry Green
Tall Fescue: Tall Fescue acres are also down from a year ago. Jonathan Green and Cascade Seed have planted more acres of Tall Fescue than the last planting season to fill the future needs of our customers. Te price for tall fescues should also soften with this new crop. We are fortunate to have a limited supply of sod quality tall fescues and Bluegrasses to fulfill Black Beauty and Blue Panther Sod Quality seed orders right now.
Kentucky Bluegrass: Kentucky Bluegrass is in inadequate supply. Te price is softening. China has taken some of the off-grade seed. Te fields are looking good at this time (in mid-May). Good Kentucky Bluegrass yields are anticipated this crop year.
Fine Fescue: Acres seem to be holding steady for the fine fescues. Not much seed is moving and the prices for fine fescues are starting to come down from the high prices we’ve endured the last few years. We also predict that the fine fescue harvest will be average for this year.
Jonathan Green has long maintained a policy to maintain sufficient inventories of sod quality seed for our sod grower customers.
Jonathan Green’s Sun Storm Kentucky Bluegrass, a 2023 introduction, grows in this production field.
Oregon has had a good year for rain, but the temperatures have not been working in our favor. In the fall, the new plantings had a hard time coming out of the ground, and when they did it was too late to put chemicals on, or we would have hurt the plants. Tis led to some weed problems in the production fields. Tis spring we have had plenty of rain and low temperatures which again has not allowed us to apply chemicals. With that being said, the older fields look better because the turfgrass seed growers were able to spray for weeds. Tere is some light to moderate weed pressure in all species of grass production.
Overall, the yields should be average to a little better than average. Te turfgrass seed cleaners will have their work cut out for them to get the seed lots cleaned to sod grade standards this year. Te weather is starting to warm up finally and we are now hopeful that the weather doesn’t get too hot too fast during the time of seed pollination.
Perennial Ryegrass: Acres are down from a year ago, but supply is good. Good zero crop and zero weed seed is hard to find. Some off grade seed has moved to China but other than that it is hard to move Perennial Ryegrass this year. Te price should soften for the new crop year. Yield should be average.
TPI Turf News July/August 2024 37
Jonathan Green’s Eugene Creeping Red Fescue is looking good in this Madris, Oregon, production field.
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