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Benefits
and Impact of Turfgrass
Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center
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University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (REC) has served urban communities of southeast Florida since 1953. The UF turf and landscape component provides scientifically accurate information on the production and maintenance of plants. There are three major areas of work: new varieties, pest management, and water use and conservation. In each, Fort Lauderdale REC continues to have a huge role in improving the quality of life in South Florida. The work at Fort Lauderdale REC is a critical node in the statewide mission of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS).
New Plant Varieties
The
cultivar Floratam, released for its chinch bug resistance in 1973, dominates
sod production throughout Florida, and represents a $200 million crop
annually. Most of the research and all the original planting stock of
Floratam came directly from Fort Lauderdale REC. The largest concentration
of production in Florida is Palm Beach County. Prior to Floratam, there
were great problems in maintaining a lawn in an environmentally conscientious
manner, because of the frequent need to treat with dangerous pesticides.
 
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| Commercial Floratam St. Augustinegrass sod farm, Palm Beach County. | |
Working with the Extension Service,
Fort Lauderdale REC scientists have been successful in delivering timely
information on new pests, and most importantly, environmentally prudent
ways of dealing with urban plant pests. New varieties have continued
to be developed, including new germplasm of St. Augustinegrass resistant
to drought, chinch bugs, and diseases. UF-IFAS scientists at Fort
Lauderdale REC have described new diseases such as bermudagrass decline
and take-all root rot disease of St. Augustinegrass, new more virulent
strains of the southern chinch bug, nematode biotypes, new weed problems,
and a host of other plagues that attack lawns, golf courses, and other
urban plants in South Florida. Most of the maladies have some equivalent
in other areas of the subtropical world, but are not studied anywhere
else in the continental US, because the problems are not temperate problems.
The commonly
used lawn pesticides in 1953 included such products as chlordane and DDT.
Since then, there has been a tremendous improvement in the safety of pesticides
used on turf. Much of that accomplishment has been due to research
by scientists at Fort Lauderdale, who evaluate new herbicides and other
management tools, and actually develop and deliver new techniques through
publications, patents, and electronic methods of delivery. The goal
is to enable the Extension Service to base recommendations on the most
accurate information, appropriate to South Florida growing conditions.
For example, the late Dr. Ev Burt, of the Fort Lauderdale REC, was
instrumental in developing atrazine as an herbicide for lawns, in 1958.
This was another major boon to sod producers and homeowners. Now
in the new millennium, we realize that with increasing urban density,
proximity to groundwater, and the solubility of atrazine, we need replacement
alternatives for this herbicide. One project is evaluating new chemicals
that are highly specific for broadleaf weed control in lawns, effective
at rates of less than 1/2 ounce per acre. As a result of this research,
a new alternative herbicide for St. Augustinegrass lawns was developed
and approved by the EPA in October, 2001.
Biological Control
With the biological
control emphasis at Fort Lauderdale, we are providing alternatives to
pesticides altogether. As examples, Fort Lauderdale REC was the
site of introduction of a parasitic wasp and other agents that kill the
tawny mole cricket, a serious pest of turf. Scientists are working
on the local strains of bacteria that control nematodes. The weed
control program is evaluating the non-herbicidal management of dollarweed,
a serious pest of St. Augustinegrass. Although the popular
belief is that overwatering contributes to dollarweed infestation, there
is no scientific basis to prove that, or to describe how and when to water
to avoid or reduce dollarweed problems. The new study will compare
irrigation regimes, from the traditional South Florida "30 minutes a day"
watering, to more judicious approaches, which may provide healthier turf
while reducing leaching into the groundwater. As with most of our
field projects, it is a 3-year study, which is necessary because it would
be dangerous if the Extension Service were to base recommendations on
only one year of data.
Groundwater Protection
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Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, 1982. |
Fort Lauderdale REC conducted a classic
study of turfgrass water use in the 1960s, that has been used by scientists
worldwide to understand the relationship of irrigation practices, rainfall,
and conservation. Emerging into the 21st century, Fort Lauderdale
scientists have developed the technology to precisely quantify the amount
of agrochemicals, including nitrates and pesticides escaping into the
urban environment. Leaching losses can be quite great under specific
circumstances, so the research tested and then proved ways turf managers
can greatly reduce the negative impact of fertilization. Approaches
such as insoluble and slow release fertilizers and fertigation were most
beneficial in South Florida.
A great area
of interest is the choice of vegetation and mulched beds possibly to reduce
the nutrient and pesticide runoff and leaching from turf areas.
Preliminary results from a very ambitious landscape mountain are showing
that the widespread replacement of turf may be unfounded, because over
time the cumulative loss from the mulched vegetation is actually greater
than from properly managed turf areas.
Delivery to Taxpayers
All these efforts
in developing environmental turf and environmental turf management are
done with the active involvement by County Extension faculty and working
turfgrass managers, including strong support by over 300 South Florida
golf courses, and students. The turf and landscape classes at Fort
Lauderdale provide the same curriculum as other University of Florida-IFAS
locations, and involve many "hands-on" applications. It
is common to see a lab class actually participating in measurements and
evaluations.
Turf students
at Fort Lauderdale are nontraditional in the sense that they are older,
have families, and have full-time jobs, compared with a traditional residency
campus. The new Turfgrass IDS (Interdisciplinnary Studies) curriculum
therefore accommodates these students by providing their classes in the
late afternoon, nights, or weekends.
Turfgrass Science: Basic or
Applied?
Science often
measures results in terms of publications, which are important landmarks
of progress. Our refereed articles on turf have passed the gauntlet
of criticism by our colleagues nationally and internationally, before
being accepted in scientific journals. Fort Lauderdale scientists
have competed substantially well in output compared with similar colleagues
statewide and nationally, in terms of refereed publications. It
is this level of validity about our research that is ultimately important
to the taxpayers, because it is the difference between results that withstand
scrutiny and those that don't.
We also accept
the task of doing research on local problems, using as much as possible
actual local field locations. There are very few studies done entirely
in the laboratory. Field research occurs both at Fort Lauderdale
Research Education Center, and through the strong cooperation of turf
managers, at representative locations in the community. Together
these efforts are a program threaded into the other similar efforts at
Fort Lauderdale on biological control of Melaleuca, environmental restoration
of wetlands, protection of structures from termites, and education of
turfgrass resource managers.
While Fort Lauderdale
Research and Education Center conducts scientific research and education
in the "pure" sense, it is also science applied to the local
needs of producing and maintaining landscape plants, businesses and individuals
trying to be make a living in the South Florida economy.
References
University
of Florida Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center home page:
http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/
Journal Series
publications by University of Florida-IFAS faculty, 1990 to present (go
to clickable link that says "Search Database"
http://research.ifas.ufl.edu/JournalSeries/