Grass is always greener

Americans love their lawns. The ubiquitous mowed and edged turfgrass is beautiful, functional and, unfortunately, thirsty. Creating an esthetically pleasing, lush, but drought-tolerant lawn is the goal of a UC Riverside research program that was the center of a Los Angeles Times feature story this week.

Turfgrass specialist Jim Baird told reporter Karen Kaplen he hopes grass from his patchwork of experimental turf plots at UC Riverside will grace the lawns, parks, golf courses and athletic fields of the future.

"My colleagues say I'm crazy," Baird is quoted. "But it doesn't hurt to dream."

Research by another UC Riverside scientist, cytogeneticist Adam Lukaszewski, cited in the article seems to be bringing Baird's dream closer to reality.

Lukaszewski crossed ryegrass with a variety of meadow fescue. When scientists stopped irrigating to simulate drought, the control grasses quickly started to yellow.

"The others stayed green and stayed green and stayed green," Lukaszewski told the Times reporter.

The scientists determined that the most vibrant grasses all shared the same stretch of DNA on the short arm of chromosome 3 that came from fescue.

"If they had it, they made it," Lukaszewski said. "If they didn't, they croaked."

NASA has determined that lawns, golf courses and parks cover 50,000 square miles of the United States. The promising turfgrasses under study at UC Riverside and other universities around the country have a tremendous potential to reduce water, fertilizer and pest control inputs on this huge swath of American land.

Beautiful golf course turf.

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