NOVEMBER FEATURE
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How a UW-Madison research facility is helping to keep Wisconsin’s turfgrass industry in the green.
Most people couldn’t picture the world without turfgrass, and no wonder: These diminutive plants that cushion children’s playing fields and lend pool table-like smoothness to putting greens are everywhere.
Turfgrass currently ranks with corn and soybeans as one of Wisconsin’s largest “crops” by acreage, and the turfgrass industry contributes well over $1 billion to the state’s economy every year. Even the Green Bay Packers’ legendary Lambeau Field owes its reputation, in part, to turfgrass.
Yet, compared to flowers, trees and other yard-dwelling plants, turfgrass can admittedly seem a bit mundane. “Everyone gets excited about a tree,” says Terry Kurth, a 30-year veteran of the lawn-care industry. “But turfgrass is another story.”
Worse, “there’s so much misinformation out there about turf—its plusses and minuses,” says the owner of Madison’s Weed Man, a local franchise of a major Canadian lawn-care company. “Turf is the Rodney Dangerfield of the plant world. It doesn’t get the respect it deserves.”
Manicured Lawns Home to 60 Research Projects
Class in the Grass: Students in “Horticulture 262: Turfgrass Management,” frequently meet at the Noer turfgrass center for lab sessions and field trips. Horticulture Professor John Stier, at right with the mower, teaches the course. Photos: Wolfgang Hoffman, Life Sciences Communications
Enter the O.J. Noer Turfgrass Research and Education Facility, a University of Wisconsin-Madison agricultural research station devoted to understanding all aspects of this humble plant, including its role in the environment and how best to manage it. Situated just outside Madison next to the University Ridge Golf Course, the 26-acre facility looks exactly like a golf course itself, complete with fairways, greens and golf carts.
But the resort-like appearance is deceiving, for the Noer Center’s close-cropped lawns are home to serious scientific investigation. Tended by a grounds crew of UW-Madison scientists, 60 research projects are currently under way, including studies of new turfgrass varieties that need less water; the effectiveness of sewage compost for establishing turf; and grasses that require less fungicide to fight off “dollar spot,” a disease that causes round, silver dollar-sized bare patches in turf.
If these projects seem like variations on a theme, it’s because they are. “A major focus of our research is to develop low-input, sustainable turfgrasses and management practices that use less chemicals, less fertilizer and less water,” says John Stier, a horticulture professor and UW-Extension turfgrass expert who is a principal investigator at Noer.
Sustainable management is, in fact, the leading edge of turf science. And like all growing industries, Wisconsin’s turfgrass industry relies on the very latest research to feed and nurture it.
“The Noer center serves as the epicenter for the distribution of scientific facts,” says Kurth. “That’s extremely important to our industry and our environment.”
Industry Support Drives Facility’s Past, Future
Sound science is so important to Wisconsin’s sod producers, landscapers, athletic field managers and golf course superintendents that over the years they’ve taken significant steps to ensure UW-Madison turf research continues. Their efforts began small: “We first got a truck for the professors to take to their research sites—that was years ago,” says Kurth. “Our goals just kept getting a little bigger.”
One goal was to endow several graduate fellowships in turfgrass research. The latest of these is the Terry and Kathleen Kurth Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, to which the Kurths alone contributed $150,000.
Another was to build the 15-year-old Noer facility itself. In the late 1980s, Monroe Miller, golf course superintendent at Madison’s Blackhawk Country Club, spearheaded a Wisconsin Turfgrass Association (WTA) campaign to raise the needed funds. The WTA eventually secured $250,000 in donations from individuals and companies, including Kurth’s lawn-care business at the time, Barefoot Lawn Service.
With matching funds from the university, construction began in 1989 and the facility opened in 1991. It is named for the late O.J. (Oyvind Juul) Noer, a UW-Madison graduate who pioneered the use of Milorganite, the country’s most effective organic fertilizer, while working for the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
Withstanding the Test of Wisconsin’s Climate
Having a turfgrass research facility here means that issues of particular concern in Wisconsin get proper attention, says Stier. For example, numerous studies have been conducted on snow mold, a turf-killing fungus that attacks in winter.
Emeritus Soil scientist Wayne Kussow measures the movement of nutrients and pesticides from turf.
The Noer facility also routinely tests the ability of promising new turfgrass varieties to survive and thrive under Wisconsin’s climatic conditions. It’s a service of “great value,” says Jerry Kershasky, who has managed the golf course at Westmoor Country Club in Brookfield, Wis., since 1974.
Many of the turfgrasses on Westmoor’s course were developed in the 1970s, the 1950s and even as far back as 1926. They tend to wither under modern management practices, such as frequent cutting to very low levels, Kershasky says. But with a demanding summer schedule that begins on most days before sunrise, Kershasky would be hard-pressed to investigate new varieties himself.
That’s why he relies on the Noer facility. “I can take the information from the Noer center to my board of directors and say, ‘Here’s a new variety that will perform better and it has been tested locally,’” he says.
Environmental Issues Get Greater Focus
The facility has also allowed the turfgrass community to focus in recent years on “issues of concern to the public,” says Brian Swingle, executive director of the Wisconsin Green Industry Federation (WGIF), an organization representing sod producers, nursery operators, and others in the landscaping and gardening industries.
Horticulture professor John Stier, left, and a colleague install drainage pipes during the construction phase of a research putting green at the Noer facility.
For example, two current Noer studies are looking at turf’s ability to curb urban runoff. When storm water runs off parking lots and other impermeable surfaces, rather than soaking into the ground, it serves up a double environmental whammy: Lakes and rivers get polluted with nutrients and sediments, and less groundwater is available for industrial and household use, including drinking water. The Noer facility has begun its investigations, in part, because lawns are sometimes accused of contributing to runoff.
In matters like this, some may think the industry wants to know the scientific truth only if it puts turfgrass in a good light. This isn’t so, says Swingle: As outdoors people who have a love for the land, most industry members have a genuine interest in learning, and doing, what’s best for the residential and urban landscape.
“We’re not environmental activists; we’re active environmentalists. We’re out improving the environment every day,” Swingle says. “And the O.J. Noer center is one of the important facilities where researchers and research projects provide us with a lot of answers where there are questions.”
Looking to Future Generations
Kershasky’s commitment to improving the environment is currently on display at Westmoor, in the form of a new five-hole golf course for kids. Designed to require less water, pesticides and fertilizers, the junior course sports a turf variety on its putting greens called velvet bentgrass. Velvet bentgrass needs 20 to 30 percent less water than creeping bentgrass, the usual turf on greens, Kershasky reports. And in trials conducted by Stier, the new variety showed better resistance to dollar spot, the single biggest turf pathogen problem in the country.
Still, though it has performed well so far, Kershasky is unlikely to plant velvet bentgrass on the club’s regular 18-hole course. The reason? It can’t be mowed low enough for the finicky tastes of most adult golfers.
That’s why Westmoor is targeting youth. “We’re trying to get the next generation of golfers in tune with what is environmentally friendly and low input,” Kershasky says, with the hope that some of those lessons rub off on parents, too. “It’s evolution, not revolution.”
What makes that evolution possible is the scientific work of the Noer facility. Without it, Kershasky says, the Wisconsin turf industry would have a hard time operating efficiently or in tune with the landscape.
“It’s very important to our industry to continue supporting the university and its programs,” adds Swingle. “We gain back so much knowledge about improving the environment.”Visit our archives to read articles from previous issues of the UW Business Wire.