OSU Researchers Think They've Found a Fix to Keeping Sports Fields Green Year-Round.

Oklahoma State University and Mississippi State are testing a dual turfgrass system that could keep athletic fields green year-round in climate transition zones, while cutting seed costs by up to 45% and reducing the water demands that stress both turf managers and water supplies.

By Oklahoma State University Ag Research — summarized for agInnovation

Mingying Xiang, assistant professor of horticulture and landscape architecture, left, looks over turfgrass research plots with colleague Shuhao Yu. In collaboration with Mississippi State University, Xiang is studying a dual turfgrass system to cope with the weather in the transition zone. (Photo by Mitchell Alcala, OSU Agriculture)

Managing turf in the climate transition zone—the belt of states across the South and lower Midwest that includes Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Mississippi—has always been a compromise. Warm-season grasses like bermudagrass thrive in the brutal summer heat but go dormant and turn brown in winter. Cool-season grasses like Kentucky bluegrass stay green through the cold months but demand enormous amounts of water to survive summer. The traditional workaround is to overseed bermudagrass with perennial ryegrass each fall, an annual expense that adds up fast and still requires significant irrigation during warmer months.

Researchers at Oklahoma State University and Mississippi State University are evaluating a different approach: a permanent dual system called bluemuda, which grows bermudagrass and Kentucky bluegrass together in the same field. Rather than overseeding every year, the two grasses theoretically complement each other across seasons. The bermudagrass carries the summer load while the Kentucky bluegrass picks up in the fall and winter. If the Kentucky bluegrass establishes and persists through the heat, the long-term cost savings could be substantial. For a typical 1.3-acre football field, researchers estimate bluemuda could cut initial seed costs by up to 45% compared to annual overseeding.

The research, funded by a $299,999 USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant, is testing 60 different combinations of six bermudagrass varieties and ten Kentucky bluegrass varieties across three locations—two in Oklahoma and one in Mississippi—to find which pairings perform best in each environment. These two grasses grown together behave differently than either does in conventional systems, so the team is essentially building an evidence base from the ground up. The potential payoff extends beyond athletic fields: reduced irrigation in a region that faces ongoing water pressure is itself a meaningful outcome.

This is the kind of applied, practical, regionally specific research that land-grant universities do best, and that federal investment in agricultural science makes possible. The results will matter not just for turf managers and athletic directors, but for communities across the transition zone trying to maintain quality green spaces while using water more wisely.

Read the full story at OSU Ag Research for more on the science behind bluemuda and how to get involved in the research survey.

Read the full story: Bluemuda Turfgrass Research Explores Water Savings and Year-Round Green Sports Fields

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