very good, but the older stands are very rough-looking, and they will be taken out of production after this harvest. New planting this spring was down compared to the previous years.


Over in the Willamette Valley, the crop looks to be a few days early as well. Tey have received some timely rains but not large amounts of moisture. April was extremely dry. Tose that have the ability to throw water, have been, but very little of the acres in the valley are irrigated. Early varieties of Turf Type Tall Fescues have just started to pollinate.


Up in Northern Minnesota, the perennial ryegrass crop took a late hard freeze which, combined with the dry winter and no snow cover, has damaged this crop. Early estimates are the yields will be off somewhere between 20 to 30 percent. Spring plantings for 2026 are down.


Central Canada had the same thing happen as Northern Minnesota, but the damage is not as bad, maybe a 15 to 20 percent loss. Te Peace River region is in dire need of rain. Te crops did come through the winter in good shape. Tey are getting close to the tipping point, hurting the crop if no moisture is received. Tey have only received 0.2 inches (0.0508 centimeters) of rain in the last 60 days. As in all grass seed production areas, the soil profile needs to have some moisture as the grass crops push seed heads and start to pollinate to help finish the crop.


Market Report: It seems that most production companies and distributors agree that movement has been pretty good in the first half of the year. Export business has been good as well. We have shipped a few unexpected loads of bluegrass to China in the last few days. Seed in the northern tier of the U.S. and into Canada continues to move out the door as folks finish projects before summer gets going. We don't know if the Oregon Grass Seed Bargaining Association (OGSBA) will negotiate a price or not for the 2025 tall fescue and perennial ryegrass crop.


DLF NORTH AMERICA


Provided by Doug Gross, Vice President Field Production, North America; Dan Walters, Director of U.S. Grower Services; and Sean Chaney, Vice President North America Turf, North America


Seed Production Report as of Spring 2025: Grass seed production areas in North America are off to a good start. Northern and higher elevation areas are a bit behind due to a cool spring. In the Pacific Northwest, fields have responded well to a mild, wet winter and most look green and healthy. With few exceptions, there’s no reason to expect that yields will be less than average. Overall degree days are a bit behind average, but not enough to be of concern.


Fall 2024 weather was good with timely rains both for the recovery of older stands and the establishment of new ones. Early spring weed pressure was unusually high in some fields. A higher than usual number of damaged fields have been removed increasing the overall quality of the coming crop. A wet and cool spring has also been good for some weeds to thrive, and pressure is high for annual weeds. Frequent rain delayed or prevented some fields from receiving fertilizer or herbicide applications. Canada production is experiencing drought conditions today and concerns are growing each day if rain doesn’t arrive soon.


Farm conditions are very difficult. Tere are few new grass seed production contracts available and virtually no profitable cropping options for growers to plant. In some cases, growers will be forced to limit inputs risking lower yields and quality. Te grass seed industry has taken efforts to remove seed production where long inventory positions by offering early out contract production and expiring contracts are not extended.


Te acreage of the overall Oregon certified grass seed crop is down again this year compared to the previous year by 2%. Concerns are shared that reduction of certified production is offset by open market production due to limited crop rotational options in the Willamette Valley. Some growers have transitioned some of their production to more forage seed crops, which will potentially cause over production in these species.


Tall Fescue: Tall fescue acres are down sharply in some areas. Existing stands are mixed with older stands looking a bit rough and younger stands looking very good. Growers report that pressure is high from field mice and expect that yields will be lowered on some fields. Tere are open market fields that should have been removed for poor quality, but growers chose to leave them in because they had no reasonable options for other crops to plant.


Perennial Ryegrass: Perennial ryegrass acres in the Pacific Northwest are healthy and mostly strong thanks to good growing conditions. Poa annua pressure is high and will require expensive spot spraying to make a clean crop.


Production in Minnesota and Canada are reporting early estimates of 20-30% winterkill, any areas which didn’t have snow cover during subzero temperatures resulted in crop loss. Further time is needed to identify the full impact on this winterkill. What fields will be saved are expected to be lower yielding and challenged with additional weed pressure.


Cool-season turfgrass production fields, such as the Perennial Ryegrass field in this photo provided by DLF USA, have long been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest due to the growing conditions in that region.


46


Annual Ryegrass: Annual ryegrass thrives in the cool wet conditions that the Willamette Valley has experienced this winter and spring. Fields are growthy and growers expect to use growth regulators to restrict growth before harvest.


TPI Turf News July/August 2025


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