Benefits and Impact of Turfgrass
Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center

University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (REC) has served urban communities of southeast Florida since 1953.  The UF turf and landscape component provides scientifically accurate information on the production and maintenance of plants.  There are three major areas of work: new varieties, pest management, and water use and conservation.  In each, Fort Lauderdale REC continues to have a huge role in improving the quality of life in South Florida.  The work at Fort Lauderdale REC is a critical node in the statewide mission of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS).

New Plant Varieties
The cultivar Floratam, released for its chinch bug resistance in 1973, dominates sod production throughout Florida, and represents a $200 million crop annually.  Most of the research and all the original planting stock of Floratam came directly from Fort Lauderdale REC.  The largest concentration of production in Florida is Palm Beach County.  Prior to Floratam, there were great problems in maintaining a lawn in an environmentally conscientious manner, because of the frequent need to treat with dangerous pesticides.

	Commercial Floratam St. Augustinegrass sod farm, Palm Beach County.

Environmental Pest Management

Working with the Extension Service, Fort Lauderdale REC scientists have been successful in delivering timely information on new pests, and most importantly, environmentally prudent ways of dealing with urban plant pests.  New varieties have continued to be developed, including new germplasm of St. Augustinegrass resistant to drought, chinch bugs, and diseases.  UF-IFAS scientists at Fort Lauderdale REC have described new diseases such as bermudagrass decline and take-all root rot disease of St.  Augustinegrass, new more virulent strains of the southern chinch bug, nematode biotypes, new weed problems, and a host of other plagues that attack lawns, golf courses, and other urban plants in South Florida.  Most of the maladies have some equivalent in other areas of the subtropical world, but are not studied anywhere else in the continental US, because the problems are not temperate problems. 
The commonly used lawn pesticides in 1953 included such products as chlordane and DDT.  Since then, there has been a tremendous improvement in the safety of pesticides used on turf.  Much of that accomplishment has been due to research by scientists at Fort Lauderdale, who evaluate new herbicides and other management tools, and actually develop and deliver new techniques through publications, patents, and electronic methods of delivery.  The goal is to enable the Extension Service to base recommendations on the most accurate information, appropriate to South Florida growing conditions.  For example, the late Dr.  Ev Burt, of the Fort Lauderdale REC, was instrumental in developing atrazine as an herbicide for lawns, in 1958.  This was another major boon to sod producers and homeowners.  Now in the new millennium, we realize that with increasing urban density, proximity to groundwater, and the solubility of atrazine, we need replacement alternatives for this herbicide.  One project is evaluating new chemicals that are highly specific for broadleaf weed control in lawns, effective at rates of less than 1/2 ounce per acre.  As a result of this research, a new alternative herbicide for St. Augustinegrass lawns was developed and approved by the EPA in October, 2001.

Biological Control
With the biological control emphasis at Fort Lauderdale, we are providing alternatives to pesticides altogether.  As examples, Fort Lauderdale REC was the site of introduction of a parasitic wasp and other agents that kill the tawny mole cricket, a serious pest of turf.  Scientists are working on the local strains of bacteria that control nematodes.  The weed control program is evaluating the non-herbicidal management of dollarweed, a serious pest of St.  Augustinegrass.  Although the popular belief is that overwatering contributes to dollarweed infestation, there is no scientific basis to prove that, or to describe how and when to water to avoid or reduce dollarweed problems.  The new study will compare irrigation regimes, from the traditional South Florida "30 minutes a day" watering, to more judicious approaches, which may provide healthier turf while reducing leaching into the groundwater.  As with most of our field projects, it is a 3-year study, which is necessary because it would be dangerous if the Extension Service were to base recommendations on only one year of data.

Groundwater Protection

	Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, 1982.

Fort Lauderdale REC conducted a classic study of turfgrass water use in the 1960s, that has been used by scientists worldwide to understand the relationship of irrigation practices, rainfall, and conservation.  Emerging into the 21st century, Fort Lauderdale scientists have developed the technology to precisely quantify the amount of agrochemicals, including nitrates and pesticides escaping into the urban environment.  Leaching losses can be quite great under specific circumstances, so the research tested and then proved ways turf managers can greatly reduce the negative impact of fertilization.  Approaches such as insoluble and slow release fertilizers and fertigation were most beneficial in South Florida.
A great area of interest is the choice of vegetation and mulched beds possibly to reduce the nutrient and pesticide runoff and leaching from turf areas.  Preliminary results from a very ambitious landscape mountain are showing that the widespread replacement of turf may be unfounded, because over time the cumulative loss from the mulched vegetation is actually greater than from properly managed turf areas.

Delivery to Taxpayers
All these efforts in developing environmental turf and environmental turf management are done with the active involvement by County Extension faculty and working turfgrass managers, including strong support by over 300 South Florida golf courses, and students.  The turf and landscape classes at Fort Lauderdale provide the same curriculum as other University of Florida-IFAS locations, and involve many "hands-on" applications.  It is common to see a lab class actually participating in measurements and evaluations.
Turf students at Fort Lauderdale are nontraditional in the sense that they are older, have families, and have full-time jobs, compared with a traditional residency campus.  The new Turfgrass IDS (Interdisciplinnary Studies) curriculum therefore accommodates these students by providing their classes in the late afternoon, nights, or weekends.

Turfgrass Science:  Basic or Applied?
Science often measures results in terms of publications, which are important landmarks of progress.  Our refereed articles on turf have passed the gauntlet of criticism by our colleagues nationally and internationally, before being accepted in scientific journals.  Fort Lauderdale scientists have competed substantially well in output compared with similar colleagues statewide and nationally, in terms of refereed publications.  It is this level of validity about our research that is ultimately important to the taxpayers, because it is the difference between results that withstand scrutiny and those that don't.
We also accept the task of doing research on local problems, using as much as possible actual local field locations.  There are very few studies done entirely in the laboratory.  Field research occurs both at Fort Lauderdale Research Education Center, and through the strong cooperation of turf managers, at representative locations in the community.  Together these efforts are a program threaded into the other similar efforts at Fort Lauderdale on biological control of Melaleuca, environmental restoration of wetlands, protection of structures from termites, and education of turfgrass resource managers.
While Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center conducts scientific research and education in the "pure" sense, it is also science applied to the local needs of producing and maintaining landscape plants, businesses and individuals trying to be make a living in the South Florida economy.

References
University of Florida Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center home page:
http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/
Journal Series publications by University of Florida-IFAS faculty, 1990 to present (go to clickable link that says "Search Database"
http://research.ifas.ufl.edu/JournalSeries/