SCRI DROUGHT STUDY DIGS DEEPER
By Suz Trusty What if?
What if we not only accelerated the development of drought tolerant turfgrasses through the collaborative network of university turfgrass researchers, breeders, and geneticists, but also incorporated a focus to identify the specific physiological components that give these newly developed grasses this great drought tolerance response?
Tat “what if ” is happening now!
"Funding for this project was provided by a Specialty Crop Research Initiative Grant (#: 2019-51181-30472) from the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture." As well as digging deeper into turfgrass physiology, it funds a continuation of a multi-university group’s work producing drought-tolerant warm-season turfgrasses. Te team (representing five universities—North Carolina State University, Texas A&M University, University of Florida, University of Georgia, and Oklahoma State University) has collaborated for ten years with a rotating leadership structure. For the five-year grant that began in 2020, the team decided to expand the evaluations out west and invited the University of California Riverside, led by Dr. Jim Baird, to join in the collaboration. NC State’s Dr. Susana Milla-Lewis, professor of Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics, is at the helm in their new phase of study.
Part of the Drought Study research team is Dr. Grady Miller, a professor and extension turfgrass specialist in the Crop & Soil Sciences Department of North Carolina State University.
Illuminating what this depth of research brings to the turfgrass industry are two members of that extensive research team. Dr. David Jespersen is assistant professor of Turfgrass Physiology at the University of Georgia Griffin Campus College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Grady Miller is professor and extension turfgrass specialist in the Crop & Soil Sciences Department of North Carolina State University. Te primary study is based on discovering the most drought tolerant cultivars
working with the best germplasm from the breeders, yet it goes far beyond that. As Dr. Miller explains, “Tis is not the typical turfgrass research environment that ran into the 2000s, where each program worked independently focused
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Another research team member is Dr. David Jespersen, an assistant professor of Turfgrass Physiology at the University of Georgia Griffin Campus College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Photo courtesy of Dr. David Jespersen
on developing marketable cultivars. Now multiple programs are working together with multiple disciplines across the scope of research digging deeper to not only develop drought tolerant grasses but also to discover the mechanisms that make them drought tolerant.” Dr. Jespersen adds, “It’s a really strong collaboration. Work we are doing within our own research team is replicated by the teams at the other participating universities and the findings are shared across that network. Te whole is greater than the sum of
the parts for the physiology, the breeding, the genetics, all helping to advance turfgrass science.”
Why It Matters
With drought conditions reaching the crisis point across much of the United States and throughout the world, it’s even more important that we learn more about the capabilities of turfgrasses to perform well with less water so they can continue their beneficial contributions to a struggling environment.
Te team of turfgrass researchers’ work has focused on selecting and testing drought-tolerant cultivars of four of the most economically important warm-season turfgrass species in the southern U.S.—bermudagrass, St. Augustinegrass, zoysiagrass, and seashore paspalum. Plant breeding is an intensive, long-term project, taking an average of 10 to 15 years to introduce a new cultivar to the marketplace. By exchanging plant materials and data among university breeders, promising turfgrass cultivars are tested under many climatic conditions, and the results accumulate quickly.
Within its first ten years of collaboration, the group evaluated over 2,500 potential varieties. Tat resulted in the release of several new drought-tolerant cultivars including two bermudagrasses, ‘TifTuf ’’ and ‘Tahoma 31’, two St. Augustine grasses, ‘TamStar’ and ‘CitraBlue’, and the zoysiagrass cultivar, ‘Lobo’. More new cultivars are in the pipeline for release soon.
TPI Turf News July/August 2022
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