It's tough being turf. You get ripped up, mowed down, whacked, andtrampled—by cleats, lawn mowers, five irons, and linebackers the sizeof refrigerators. And that's only if you make it to the field. Everyyear, dozens of new grass varieties are sprung upon the Americanpublic: TifSport, Mohawk, Axcella, Princess 77, each one meant toconquer some fraction of the 30 million acres of lawn, golf course,athletic field, public park, cemetery, and sod farm in the UnitedStates.
Most of the new grasses are just genetic tweakings ofpre-existing models—the botanical equivalent of a "new and improved"paper towel. Once in a great while, however, a new grass surfaces thatpromises to reshape the turfscape. Ron Duncan, a turf scientist at theUniversity of Georgia, thinks he's onto one. Popularly known asseashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum to turf geeks), Duncan'sgrass is notable less for what it does than for what it doesn't do:drink much. It requires as little as half the water of some flashiergrasses, and it can subsist on seawater. "It's fitting into a nichethat hasn't been there before," Duncan says. "This is a grass whosetime has come."
Once upon a time, three or four decades ago,the turf industry had no niches. The goal was to findgeneralists—grasses that worked for most people in most places. It wasone-grass-fits-all. Then farmland gave way to suburbs, housingdevelopments, and fields of leisure: 50 million lawns, 700,000 athleticgrounds, 14,500 golf courses. Turf grasses were specialized: warmseason or cold season; arid, boggy, sunny, shady; lawn sod, golf sod,football sod. Turf today is a $45-billion-a-year industry. TheUniversity of Georgia alone has seven turf researchers studyingeverything from genetics and soil science to plant pathology, nutrientuptake, and insect management. An undergraduate can major in turf.
The field is dominated by a handful of tried-and-true species: Bermudagrass, fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, and a few others. There are morethan 200 commercially available cultivars of perennial ryegrass alone.Still, enterprising researchers continue to scout the world for newturf contenders. Forget virgin rain forests or remote tropical islands:Researchers comb parking lots, old parks, and highway medianstrips—"areas that really beat grasses up," one turf scientist says."They're looking for grasses that basically look like survivors." Oneformerly popular grass, Manhattan, was discovered growing wild inCentral Park. Another, Merion, was found on a golf course inPennsylvania.
Needless to say, not every grass makes the cut.The chief lawn grass criteria are fertility and "mowability": A lawnshouldn't grow too fast (otherwise it may require mowing more than oncea week), and when it is cut, it should come back neat and tidy, notfrayed and dead on the ends. Golf and sport turfs face stifferchallenges. Ideal golf greens should be soft and spongy, yet firmenough to give good "bounce." In one classic golf sod test, farm eggsare dropped onto turf candidates from a height of 11 feet to see howmany break. (None, ideally.) And there are stress tests. These rangefrom the straightforward—careering across a sod farm in a golf cart—tothe mechanically complex. With giant rollers and rubber-rod beaters,scientists simulate the umpteen body slams and foot falls turf may beasked to endure, not to mention the effects of the seeders, sodders,scarifiers, rock removers, and other machinery designed to maintain it.
