The Turf Zone Podcast

Pennsylvania Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode continues our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking to Jim Brosnan, Professor at the University of Tennessee and Director of the UT Weed Diagnostic Center. Jim, thanks for joining us.

JB: Thanks for having me on.

 

TTZ: Let’s dive into this project that you are a participant with many other researchers. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of better words, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career. What’s your poa story?

JB: My poa story… Wow, I’ve never been asked that before. You know, it’s funny, I’ll contend it’s the most amazing plant out there, at least that affects the turf world. It’s a weed in certain situations and it’s a desirable in other situations, and the adaptability piece of it is off the charts high. I mean, we have poa documented on every continent, including Antarctica. Which when you wrap your mind around that, it’s kinda nuts. For me as a weed scientist, as resistance issues have worsened, I think my first resistance interaction with poa came in the late 2000s, early 2010-ish. I was on an extension visit in West Tennessee about a drainage issue and putting greens and we were looking at putting greens and taking root zone profiles and talking about layering within the root zone and surface drainage versus internal drainage and building a plan for how to combat that at this golf course. And as we were going back to my truck in the parking lot, the superintendent told me, “Have you ever seen Roundup not kill annual bluegrass?” I said, “Well, I’ve never seen it, I’ve heard about it in row crop situations, but I’ve never seen it in turf.” He said, “Well, I’ve got fairways of it. Why don’t you hop in the cart and we’ll go have a look?” And that’s kind of where it all started for me, and then it became one of those scenarios where the more that I would give presentations and talk about this, the more individuals in the audience would come up to me afterwards and say, “Hey, I think I’ve got an issue, can you come visit me and have a look?” And it kind of grew from there to be the number one weed that my program here at the University of Tennessee works on. The students and staff that work for me joke that it’s poa 365 around here. 365 days a year it’s part of the conversation.

 

TTZ: Sounds like a pretty serious origin story of your relationship. So how does annual bluegrass rank in the list of weeds in Tennessee?

JB: That’s a hard question to answer because it all depends on what those rankings are based on. Are the rankings based on what’s the hardest to control, are the rankings based on what’s the most prevalent? Is the ranking based on what’s most widespread? I think regardless of how you define the parameters, poa would be on the list. We’re in a climate in Tennessee where it’s almost kind of a perfect storm in the transition zone, where warm season grasses are going to go dormant for extended periods and really offer no competition against poa invasion. We also have climatic conditions that can favor poa growth for extended periods. Not only in the winter, but sometimes even into the late spring. As we’re recording this now, in June, there are areas on golf courses where you can find healthy, mature poa plants. That’s one of the things I think we need to do more research on is to understand the environments that maybe facilitate that survival because that complicated management. The paradigm is that this is a true annual, and in most cases that paradigm is correct. There certainly could be environments out there where maybe we can get persistence that looks more like a perennial than an annual.

 

TTZ: Coming back to the scope of the ResistPoa Project, what objectives are you pursuing as part of that project, and as a side note,

New England Blade – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode continues our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this episode we’re talking to Jim Brosnan, Professor at the University of Tennessee and Director of the UT Weed Diagnostic Center. Jim, thanks for joining us.

JB: Thanks for having me on.

 

TTZ: Let’s dive into this project that you are a participant with many other researchers. Most turfgrass scientists have had, for lack of better words, a professional relationship with annual bluegrass for their entire career. What’s your poa story?

JB: My poa story… Wow, I’ve never been asked that before. You know, it’s funny, I’ll contend it’s the most amazing plant out there, at least that affects the turf world. It’s a weed in certain situations and it’s a desirable in other situations, and the adaptability piece of it is off the charts high. I mean, we have poa documented on every continent, including Antarctica. Which when you wrap your mind around that, it’s kinda nuts. For me as a weed scientist, as resistance issues have worsened, I think my first resistance interaction with poa came in the late 2000s, early 2010-ish. I was on an extension visit in West Tennessee about a drainage issue and putting greens and we were looking at putting greens and taking root zone profiles and talking about layering within the root zone and surface drainage versus internal drainage and building a plan for how to combat that at this golf course. And as we were going back to my truck in the parking lot, the superintendent told me, “Have you ever seen Roundup not kill annual bluegrass?” I said, “Well, I’ve never seen it, I’ve heard about it in row crop situations, but I’ve never seen it in turf.” He said, “Well, I’ve got fairways of it. Why don’t you hop in the cart and we’ll go have a look?” And that’s kind of where it all started for me, and then it became one of those scenarios where the more that I would give presentations and talk about this, the more individuals in the audience would come up to me afterwards and say, “Hey, I think I’ve got an issue, can you come visit me and have a look?” And it kind of grew from there to be the number one weed that my program here at the University of Tennessee works on. The students and staff that work for me joke that it’s poa 365 around here. 365 days a year it’s part of the conversation.

 

TTZ: Sounds like a pretty serious origin story of your relationship. So how does annual bluegrass rank in the list of weeds in Tennessee?

JB: That’s a hard question to answer because it all depends on what those rankings are based on. Are the rankings based on what’s the hardest to control, are the rankings based on what’s the most prevalent? Is the ranking based on what’s most widespread? I think regardless of how you define the parameters, poa would be on the list. We’re in a climate in Tennessee where it’s almost kind of a perfect storm in the transition zone, where warm season grasses are going to go dormant for extended periods and really offer no competition against poa invasion. We also have climatic conditions that can favor poa growth for extended periods. Not only in the winter, but sometimes even into the late spring. As we’re recording this now, in June, there are areas on golf courses where you can find healthy, mature poa plants. That’s one of the things I think we need to do more research on is to understand the environments that maybe facilitate that survival because that complicated management. The paradigm is that this is a true annual, and in most cases that paradigm is correct. There certainly could be environments out there where maybe we can get persistence that looks more like a perennial than an annual.

 

TTZ: Coming back to the scope of the ResistPoa Project, what objectives are you pursuing as part of that project, and as a side note,

ATA Turf Times – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks, we maintain Twitter as a means of relaying information as...

Tennessee Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks, we maintain Twitter as a means of relaying informati...

North Carolina Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks, we maintain Twitter as a means of relaying info...

MTC Turf News – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks, we maintain Twitter as a means of relaying information as ...

Virginia Turfgrass Journal – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks,

Mississippi Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks, we maintain Twitter as a means of relaying informa...

Arkansas Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks, we maintain Twitter as a means of relaying informatio...

Pennsylvania Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. This episode begins our series on the USDA-funded ResistPoa Project. In this, our first episode, we’re talking to researcher Jay McCurdy, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University. How are you Jay?

Jay McCurdy: I’m doing well, thanks for having me.

TTZ: Thanks so much for joining us. I want to give a little intro about what we’re doing here and why. You are partnering with The Turf Zone and all of our publications to help share some information on the ResistPoa Project. Since you are tasked with extension and outreach, we’re kicking off the series with you and in the coming days we’ll also hear from other researchers that are part of the project. Start off by telling me why it’s so important that this information gets out to turf managers at this time?

JM: Well, the hope is that we’re doing this in a timely fashion and sharing results so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about how they choose to control annual bluegrass this fall – it’s a fall emerging cool season plant. Within our listening range or readership range, that’s going to be sometime starting in September when practitioners are making applications of pre emergence herbicides and then after that, post emergence herbicides, and then maybe implementing cultural practices now that actually also influence the success or failure of some of those applications so I think that’s why we’re choosing to do that now. Hopefully our listeners and readership will take heed of some of the things we discuss.

TTZ: For the average turfgrass manager out there, what has been their experience with poa annua?

JM: Reports to us as a group of university scientists usually lead to the conclusion that annual bluegrass is probably the most troublesome weed in maintained turf and in general manmade landscapes in the United States. It probably is also one of the most most troublesome weeds in international markets as well. So what leads us into this conversation is, we want to try to change that and that’s going to be a very complicated, integrated approach, including herbicides, but also cultural practices and so on and so forth.

TTZ: What objectives are you specifically pursuing as part of the ResistPoa Project, and what other interests pertaining to annual bluegrass are you studying separately.

JM: So a little bit of background on the project, we proposed this project in 2017, and then again in 2018 and had very positive reviews in the first round, and then the second round got approved. We have about 5.6 million dollars in this project covering probably about, it’s not complete salaries, but it’s paying for some research being done by roughly 50 employees. I think there are 16 university scientists involved, there are at least 15 universities so it’s a major project across the United States. A number of different variables including cool season and warm season types of climates, various different industry segments including golf, lawn care, sod farms, sports fields. So on this project, these university scientists, myself included, have, at last count, nine different major objectives. Within each of those objectives, a good example would be understanding the seed life cycle and germination success of various different populations. Understanding the germination of those populations would be a sub-objective of one major objective looking at the germination and life cycle of the seed. So I’m actually on a couple of different objectives.

My major objective that I’m responsible for is the extension and outreach component of this project. Part of that has been building a website. That website is resistpoa.org it’s got a number of different things that we’re going to talk about today. Also, managing the Twitter account in conjunction with a few other folks, we maintain Twitter as a means of relaying inform...