Te second year’s summer Field Day was held at Rutgers University. It returned to MSU the following year. Jim says, “Dr. Bill Daniels, from Purdue; Dr. Henry Indyk from Rutgers, and Dr. Jim Watson of the Toro Company also were deeply involved during those early days. Henry served as the first executive director.” Dr. Beard’s “Evolution of Turfgrass Sod” is included in the History of Turfgrass Producers International, which was developed for the 40th Anniversary of TPI. Reviewing the decades covered in that publication reveals the depth of assistance Dr. Beard provided. He became TPI’s second Honorary Member in 1975. Dr. Indyk was the first in 1973.
Harriet typed the programs for the field days and the research reports. She handled registrations and the sign up for mailings and collected the money for the lunches, working alongside University department personnel. Jim says, “She was the meet and greet person and got to know everyone. Most sod farms are family operations made up of people who work hard to be successful. We made some great friends among those sod producers, most of them the fathers of the generation running the business now, and Harriet was the instigator of inviting folks over for dinner or hors d'oeuvres.”
Jim’s work with the Michigan Turf Foundation also was supported by Harriet, serving as executive secretary, with no pay. Harriet chimes in with, “I don’t get paid now—but I get my share anyhow. When Jim started the International Sports Turf Institute we looked into giving me a salary and determined that only the government would benefit from it. My role has been rewarding in so many more ways than a paycheck.”
Early Sod Production Research
Jim reports, “A few years ago, I was asked to do a series of half-day lectures including one covering the old sod production research we did on that original MSU sod farm. Sod strength and transplant rooting were new concepts. We were faced with establishing the criteria for both and developing the measurement techniques for them.
“We were the first to research the heating of sod during shipping. Dr. John King did that research for his Ph.D. A sod farm would ship out three to five trailer loads of sod per day to a Pennsylvania site and would haul back steel. Tey could market to that distance rather inexpensively when they had a load both ways and it worked well for all involved. John would ride in a truck all night and get out at intervals to take compression measures and measure the heat, trying to figure out all the problems.”
Dr. Beard states the original net sod production took place on the research farm. “Dr. Brian Mercer from England developed the extrusion process that developed the mesh netting in a continuous flow. It was much cheaper to produce than the earlier bonding method and could be
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set up for different thicknesses,” says Jim. “He had read some of my research and showed up at my MSU office looking for Dr. Beard. He was surprised to find someone so young, but funded the research anyway. His netting was used at the Tokyo airport to reduce wear on the runway; in olive harvesting to keep the olives off the ground while separating them from the leaves; and in deserts as vertical windbreaks to cut down blowing sand around watering holes. We found we could seed Kentucky bluegrass into that netting and it would hold together in ten days.”
Mercer’s father or grandfather had invented mercerized cloth. Jim says, “Brian had the same type of mind, continually developing ideas and marketing them. He became a very good friend and one of our more wealthy connections.”
When Jim joined the faculty of Texas A&M in 1975, Doug Fender was executive director of TPI and doing a great job of leadership in the water battle. Jim continued to be supportive of TPI and its initiatives, now with the opportunity to repeat much of the same research he had conducted, but this time on warm-season grasses. “Tat gave me the background to write the different books and the experience to work with turfgrass groups in all climate zones around the world.”
It took longer for him to get the industry to use the term turfgrass, instead of grass or turf, Harriet reports, “Grass was something that many would smoke. Turf was related more to horseracing than the other usages. Turfgrass is more specific. Later, after the industry started using turfgrass, the artificial turf people latched onto the word turf. Now we need to say turfgrass or natural grass to differentiate it from artificial.”
This photo of Dr. James B Beard checking a turfgrass root system made its way to the pages of Life magazine, where it was titled, “Headless Turfgrass Researcher at Work.” Photo courtesy of the Dr. James B and Harriet Beard Collection
TPI Turf News March/April 2017
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