Hundreds Gather at Joseph Troll Turf Research Center for Turf Field Day
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If there’s a Super Bowl for the turf-related industries—think of those professions dedicated to keeping stadiums, parks, golf courses and campuses green—the Turf Field Day at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has got to be it. A joint collaboration between UMass Extension, UMass Amherst’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture, and the College of Natural Sciences (CNS), the event, held biannually at UMass Amherst’s Joseph Troll Turf Research Center at the base of Mount Sugarloaf, draws hundreds of professionals from throughout New England. The event is equal parts outdoor classroom, trade show, professional conference, and homecoming for the many alumni of UMass Amherst’s top-ranked turf program (many of which are superintendents at top 100 golf courses and directors of grounds at colleges and professional sports facilities). This year, there was even barbecue.
“One of my first visits to UMass Amherst, when I started as chancellor two years ago, was to this research lab, which is also a classroom,” said UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes in the opening remarks he delivered to the crowd on a perfect summer day in late July. “I learned on that visit why the Stockbridge School of Agriculture is the number one program in the country this year for Agricultural Science, according to the U.S. News & World Report, how we stand for the common good and how we can bring researchers, students, and industry partners together to ask difficult questions about environmental challenges and then find the answers to them together.”
When the introductory remarks concluded, two groups of about 150 participants each embarked on a tour of ten different stations, each of which was a mini-crash-course in one of the most pressing topics facing the turf industry today, from planting to helping maintain pollinator populations to managing turfgrass ants, whose mounds are the bane of putters everywhere.
At one of the stations, Michelle DaCosta, professor of plant physiology, had planted herself amid a grid of 20 different varieties of turf in her presentation on drought-resistant fairway grasses. The crowd nodded along in agreement or stooped to feel the quality of one grass versus another as she spoke about the need to conserve water and yet still meet the quality required by today’s top golf courses.
Jason Lanier, UMass Amherst Extension specialist and group leader in commercial horticulture, and the event’s lead organizer, said, “it’s tremendously satisfying to see the large crowd of happy and enthusiastic participants turn out every other year, the industry representatives that are always eager to support, and of course our UMass folks that go above and beyond in putting our best foot forward. This is especially true when the weather works out!”
In one of the most highly animated presentations, Geunhwa Jung, professor of turf pathology, walked the crowd through the lifecycle of common fungi that inhabit fields and links, and how to time one’s applications of fungicide to be maximally effective with minimal concentrations. “What the best way to kill grass?” he asked the crowd. “Misapply pesticide,” he roared, to laughs from the note-taking audience.
Though his tenure at UMass Amherst hadn’t even officially started yet, Evan Mascitti, the incoming assistant professor of urban and managed landscapes, received a warm welcome from Michael Fox, dean of CNS: “we take great pride in our Turfgrass Science and Management program,” he said, “and are dedicated to cultivating the next generation of green-industry professionals.” Mascitti, after Fox’s introduction, spent the day busily meeting his new colleagues, swapping business cards and doing the work of bringing his scientific knowledge to bear on real-world problems for which the Stockbridge School of Agriculture is well-known.
During a session that had his participants on their hands-and-knees, graduate student Sanjok Timalsina had participants pulling handfuls of turf in search of chinch bugs, miniscule insects that drain blades of grass dry and then inject them with toxins. Timalsina had his audience find and count bugs, then discussed different methods of monitoring for them and how another insect, the bigeyed bug, can be used as a natural method of pest control.
And then there were the robotic, self-driving lawnmowers. UMass Amherst researchers are currently studying how robotic mowers can positively affect turfgrass health and pest management. Back and forth, all day long, much to the delight of the gathered crowds, the fleet of autonomous mowing units kept the turf perfectly trimmed.
When Lynne McLandsborough, assistant vice chancellor for research and engagement and director of the Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment—housed within CNS—opened Turf Field Day, she praised the Turf Program as an example of “agricultural extension for the common good,” and the way that cutting-edge, research-driven science met industry professionals and former and current students on the common turf of Troll Research Center exemplifies the strength that Chancellor Reyes had highlighted in his remarks. “Our legacy is strong because we’ve been asking and collaboratively answering difficult agricultural questions for 160 years. I’m confident that questions we’re asking and collaboratively answering today will keep us going strong for the next 160.”
This story was originally published by the UMass News Office.