Industry Involvement
Tis new wave of consumer outreach will complement traditional extension activities such as field days and demonstration turf plots at public locations like municipal buildings (including NC State’s forthcoming N.C. Plant Science Initiative building). To see details on that project, check out this website.
https://cals.ncsu.edu/psi/psb/
Tis closeup view shows one of the turfgrass samples in the research program.
Te group is looking not only to refine the varieties but to quantify best management practice guidelines for the new turfgrass varieties. Tis will involve testing under multiple conditions: restricted rainfall, reclaimed water irrigation, salty-spray exposure, shade, sod strength for cutting, and other production aspects. Surviving these endurance tests will produce turfgrass uniquely adapted for low maintenance production and management.
Testing the Technology Te projected design of NC State’s North Carolina Plant Science Initiative
Tese opportunities will reach industry professionals like landscapers, contractors, and sod producers who are often the decision-makers in turfgrass variety selection. NC State turfgrass extension specialist Dr. Grady Miller says it’s not enough just to put new varieties out. “Like the old saying goes ‘Tose near the cutting edge may get cut.’ Our efforts can convince the industry to adopt and produce, but the consumer needs to be able to properly manage the turfgrasses if we want these new varieties to be successful.”
“We’ve learned in our investigations that the average consumer is concerned about their grass’s environmental tolerance—to shade, drought, and winter-kill Tey are looking for low-maintenance landscapes,” Milla-Lewis noted.
Convincing homeowners to adopt these drought-tolerant grasses would deliver on both accounts. “We have a young consumer audience with very different landscape needs. For some, lawn maintenance is at best a hobby, and at worst a nuisance. Tey are looking for lawns requiring fewer inputs, even if it is more expensive,” concluded Miller.
New Conditions
Plant breeding didn’t end in the project’s phase II. It’s the heart of the project, but there’s always room to improve selections and methodology. “Some team members are working to understand what makes a grass more drought- tolerant. Others use that information to identify which genes might be responsible for the improved performance. All this information can be used to quickly identify plant materials worth field testing, saving breeders time and resources,” Milla-Lewis said.
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Part of the team’s challenge isn’t just testing turfgrasses, but technology itself. Most UAV technology wasn’t developed for crop production. Part of the group’s forthcoming research will be devoted to figuring out the best ways to use technology in plant breeding and developing protocols to standardize use. Rob Austin is a GIS specialist at NC State, “We’re trying to figure out what works best for this application. Some experiments on drone use in plant breeding have been done, but large- scale research is scarce.”
Te group plans to collaborate on shared protocols that standardize drone data collection activities and data analysis techniques. Austin will oversee the Raleigh group’s data strategy. He sees opportunity in automating the workflow. “We don’t want to simply trade time in the field for time behind a computer screen,” Austin said, “We need standards and processes to translate the data into meaningful results.”
The Power of Teams
“Te success of this project to date is because of teamwork. It just goes to show how much you can get done with a collaborative team—with no room for hierarchy,” Grady Miller noted. Te multi- university team is guided by an industry advisory board providing feedback and input to direct the research for environmental and economic benefit.
Milla-Lewis’s leadership stint will extend the project for an additional four years. “Te strength of this group resides not only in the wide range of expertise of the research and extension scientists involved in the project and how well we work together, but also in how closely we interact with our industry partners. Tey are our compass, making sure our deliverables fulfill real industry needs,” Milla-Lewis concluded.
TPI Turf News May/June 2021
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