Watering restrictions may not cause us so much worry in the
future. For all these hot,
dry days that arrive nearly every summer, University of Georgia
agricultural scientists
have developed a new grass that needs much less water.

Most yards have grass that needs at least an inch of water
per
week during the summer.
But the new grass, called Tall Fescue Southeast, isn’t nearly as
thirsty.

In tests, the scientists torment the new grass. They try not
to water it, while keeping
a close, scientific watch on how thirsty Tall Fescue Southeast
gets.

Roots Key to Drought
Tolerance

Using moisture sensors buried at 2 feet deep in the soil, the
scientists keep close
tabs on the amount of available water. And they discovered that
roots need something to
eat, as well as something to drink, for the grass to stay green
during a drought.

“The plant doesn’t produce enough food or carbohydrates
to maintain the root
system. So it starts losing some of them,” said Bob Carrow, a
turf breeder with the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences in Griffin, Ga.

Carrow and other researchers began their studies on the new
grass in 1993 with drought
survival in mind. They deprived the grass of water for weeks at
a
time to see how it
reacts. The research kept pointing them underground.

They found that if they wanted to improve the drought
tolerance of the grass, they had
to go to the bottom and work on the root structure. So they
developed a grass that has
tougher roots — roots that can survive the hot summer better
than other tall fescues.

New Grass More
Frugal

The scientists also made the new grass more frugal.

Other grasses tend to drink all the water they can at one
time, putting on spurts of
growth they can’t support later. But not Tall Fescue
Southeast.

“Even though the water is there in the soil, they don’t
use any more than they
need,” Carrow said.

Tall Fescue Southeast needs only about three-quarters of an
inch of water a week,
instead of the inch per week most popular grasses require. It
stays greener longer in a
hot, dry world.

The grass should be available in the fall of 2001, Carrow
said. But you’d have to rip
out your old grass to put this one in, and that might be more
trouble than some people
want to go through. However, those with new homes may want to
use
the new grass to
establish a more drought-hardy lawn.

The UGA scientists expect to release another drought-tolerant
grass in the next three
years. That one, they say, will need 50 percent less water.