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University of Georgia names The Turfgrass Group license holder for TifTuf

By |  July 28, 2015 0 Comments
tifturf_celebration

Celebration (L) and TifTuf (DT-1) (R) bermudagrasses are shown mowed at 1.5 inches after sustained droughty conditions in the Linear Gradient Irrigation System evaluation during 2011 at the West Florida Research and Education Center in Jay, Fla. The field trial was planted from sod during 2010.

The Turfgrass Group has been named the licensing and marketing agent for TifTuf certified bermudagrass (experimental name DT-1).

The new drought tolerant turfgrass was developed by a team of researchers led by Wayne Hanna, Ph.D., and Brian Schwartz, PhD., at the University of Georgia (UGA). TifTuf has been in testing at the UGA since 1993, and was selected for release from a pool of more than 27,700 potential cultivars because of its extreme drought tolerance and high turf quality, according to a news release.

“I’ve seen the potential in this grass since 2009,” Schwartz says, which was the year he came to the UGA as a turfgrass breeder. “That was a dry year, and I remember TifTuf keeping its green color while a lot of the other grasses were turning brown. That was when I began trying to figure out why it was so drought tolerant.

“After three more years of field research in two different soil types, we found evidence that TifTuf was using less water than Tifway 419 and TifSport. This was exciting because initially we believed it might just have a deeper root system capable of extracting more water. But instead, it seems that it’s just using less of the available resources.”

Further research conducted at UGA — demonstrated in ongoing National Turfgrass Evaluation Program trials — and other tests found that TifTuf:

  • uses less water — TifTuf used 38 perfect less water than Tifway during a 2011 drought trial;
  • performs best under drought stress, has superior turfgrass performance than many other cultivars (including Tifway, Celebration, and Princess-77) when subjected to short- and long-term periods of drought across the country;
  • and has faster green-up in unirrigated stress trials, greening-up earlier than Tifway.

“With the extreme drought conditions being experienced in California and around the United States, there has never been a greater need for a drought tolerant grass like TifTuf,” says Ken Morrow, co-founder of The Turfgrass Group. “We know it will create sustainable, environmentally friendly lawns, sports fields and golf courses around the country that use significantly less water than other grasses available on the market today.”

The Turfgrass Group is an affiliated company of New Concept Turf. TifTuf is available now for sod production license with limited foundation material ready for planting this summer, according to a news release.

This is posted in Industry News, Research


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