What Comes Next?
While drought is the central focus of this segment of the project, they also are looking at the salinity factor. Miller reports, “Within this same grant, other research teams are looking at shade tolerance, and there’s a sod study which is digging into establishment speed, production timing, and sod tensile strength.”
As their current research produces more data, Miller and Jespersen foresee multiple ways it could be used. Jespersen says, “Knowing how much water specific turfgrass cultivars use when they are not under stress and when they are under stress could be combined with data from the other segments of the research to develop precision irrigation programs.”
Miller says, “A different part of the team is researching consumer preferences, delving into how turfgrasses are perceived, selected, and maintained, and what avenues are most effective in delivering information that addresses all those components. Te last mile in developing drought tolerant cultivars is getting them on people’s lawns and maintained effectively and efficiently.” (See the Goals and Objectives Sidebar for even more details on the research segments.)
Teir wish list for the future? More labor, time, and space. Miller says, “We have the field plots replicated at the different universities, but in an ideal scenario we’d have even more places.” Jespersen adds, “Developing seeded cultivars of warm-season turfgrasses that incorporate the list of positive characteristics would be great, too.”
Goals and Objectives As reported in the Goals and Objectives section of the grant, “Approximately 58 percent of the efforts funded by this grant will focus on research in plant breeding, genetic, genomics and other methods to improve crop characteristics. Tis will include supplying genotypes into a robust pipeline for multi-location evaluations in nurseries that differ in the type and intensity of abiotic and biotic stresses according to environmental conditions at each location to exploit genotype action/response to environmental effects. Evaluate advanced lines under long-term drought conditions and conduct ancillary trials for shade and salinity tolerance, pest responses, and sod tensile strength. Identify and validate quantitative trait loci associated with drought and salinity tolerance to implement marker-assisted selection. Identify candidate genes through an integrated analysis that combines gene expression with metabolic information. Generate high quality reference genomes for African bermudagrass, St. Augustinegrass, and zoysiagrass.
Approximately eight percent of the effort will be in the areas of new innovations and technology. Tis area of research will focus on evaluating emerging UAS (unmanned aerial systems) technologies for their potential to facilitate high-throughput phenotyping to improve data collection on drought tolerance associated with traits. And on efforts to improve production efficiency, productivity, and profitability over the long-term.
Approximately 34 percent of the effort will focus on quantifying the water required to maintain acceptable quality in advanced lines generated from this program to develop water saving maintenance protocols for new cultivars. And conducting surveys to evaluate tradeoffs between drought tolerance and aesthetics. Tis will lead to producing extension-outreach programs to help extension experts, stakeholders, and consumers to understand the long-term impact of drought tolerant turfgrass selection and conservation of water. (Watch for a future Turf News article focusing on the communication segment of the grant.)
Just like with that onion, research comes in “layers.” Jespersen says, “As we dig deeper, our findings open up even more areas to explore and new places to dig. Studying the nuances of how the plants operate with the complex interactions that take place is fascinating for me. Tere are so many questions to answer and so many opportunities for research in the future, I’m like a kid in a candy store as to what to dig into next.”
Editor’s Note: "Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture."
Suz Trusty is co-editor of Turf News.
As a plant physiologist, Dr. Jespersen is part of the research team “looking more at the mechanisms within the plant, trying to identify how they change and ‘why’ they perform as they do in drought situations.” Photo courtesy of Dr. David Jespersen and the University of Georgia Gallery
TPI Turf News July/August 2022
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