fine fescues

By Michael Barnes and Kristen C. Nelson, University of Minnesota

As spring activities begin, many of us are looking out our windows at last year’s turfgrass and taking much-needed walks throughout our urban green spaces. Public land managers are on the front lines of vegetation management and decision making as essential players in urban sustainability efforts. Managers can be found working at the city level, county level, or working for other organizations such as watershed districts that cut across municipal and county boundaries.

By Dominic Petrella, University of Minnesota

Foliage (trees, shrubs, etc.) and structures (buildings, fences, etc.) can shade turfgrasses either by directly being over turf areas, or by casting shadows over the turf – both leading to poor turfgrass performance. As researchers, we try to classify how light changes under these areas to better understand how turfgrasses might respond, and to be able to breed better turfgrasses for shade. We collect data on spectral quality under trees, structures, and their shadows, then we can expose various germplasm to simulated shade to find the best plants.

By Ross Braun and Aaron Patton, Purdue University

The term “Fescue” is one that you may often hear during golf TV broadcasts or in dialogue with a person about planting, maintaining, controlling, etc. some kind of grass. However, just using the term “fescue” really doesn’t tell you much about this grass because there are many different kinds of fescues.

By Kristine Moncada, University of Minnesota

We are happy to announce that from now on, we will be posting twice-monthly articles about our research on fine fescues. The long-term goal of our project is to increase the use of well-adapted fine fescue turfgrass cultivars in sustainable landscapes.