By Cat Holmes
University of Georgia
Peaches, pecans, peanuts and poultry are often at the forefront
when Georgia agriculture is in the news. But those who build
and maintain golf courses in Southern climes regularly turn to
another Georgia product without which the sport couldn’t be
played: turf grass.
Turf cultivars from the Coastal Plain Experiment Station on the
Tifton, Ga., campus of the University of Georgia are industry
standards. The most recent varieties, TifSport and TifEagle,
are so popular the supply can’t meet the demand.
Both are the handiwork of Wayne Hanna, a plant geneticist for
the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Hanna has spent 32 years at Tifton developing superior
turf grasses.
Hanna recently won UGA’s 2003 Inventor’s Award, given each year
for a unique, creative and innovative discovery that has made
an impact on the community. His was awarded for solving many
turf industry problems. He has been awarded seven patents over
his career.
Hanna has tackled the biggest issues the industry faces: water,
pesticides and fertilizers.
“The new grasses have all been developed with the goal of
maintaining turf quality with less water, pesticides and, to
some degree, fertilizers,” Hanna said.
“We genetically incorporate genes that will give resistence to
major pests and drought,” he said, “and maintain acceptable
grass quality with less water.”
Since Bermuda grasses aren’t naturally cold-hardy, for example,
Hanna worked for eight years to develop TifSport, which fares
better in colder weather.
“We identified a number of characteristics we felt were key for
athletic fields and golf courses, as well as high-end
landscapes and lawns,” Hanna said.
“We wanted a grass with superior color, cold hardiness and
disease resistance,” he said. “We also knew that rapid recovery
from injury (mowing) was vital, so we concentrated on turf
density and strength. Last, but not least, our new variety had
to be able to tolerate frequent, lower mowing heights.”
To develop TifEagle, Hanna subjected portions of the Bermuda
grass TifWay 2 to gamma radiation and selected offspring with
mutations for short stolons, the stem-like part of the grass
that produces shoots and leaves.
Short stolons allow for a low leaf canopy that can handle the
twice-a-day mowing many golf courses inflict on their courses.
The dense canopy also leaves little room for algae and weeds
like crabgrass, reducing the need for herbicides.
“TifEagle is the latest and greatest turf grass for greens,
where the putting surface must be of the highest possible
quality,” said golf course designer Glenn Boorman. Boorman has
designed golf courses worldwide for Denis Griffiths and
Associates, a golf course architectural firm in Brazelton,
Ga.
TifSport is on fields where the Atlanta Falcons and Washington
Redskins play, and both TifSport and TifEagle appear on golf
courses around the world.
Golf is an enormous industry. It accounted for $62.2 billion in
goods and services in 2000, according to the “Golf Economy
Report” published by the National Golf Foundation. For
perspective, the motion picture and sound recording industry
was worth $57.8 billion that same year.
Alongside golf, turf makes up one of the fastest growing
industries in the United States. In Georgia alone, it’s
estimated at more than $1 billion, according to UGA turf
management figures.
