Lush Lawns, Less Mows

BELLE GLADE, Fla. - Russell Nagata, a University of Florida plant breeder based at the college's research station in Belle Glade, is the lead scientist on a new kind of slow-growing St. Augustine grass that's been in the works for five years. He estimates it will be ready for market in two years.

"It will help homeowners who do not want to mow every week," Nagata said. "More so, what we are looking for is to save natural resources, especially fuel.

"If we can mow every other week instead of every week, we save 50 percent of our fuel."

It takes 1 gallon of fuel to power the average mower to cut 1 acre, and Florida has 5.1 million acres of managed turf, which is the general term for the stuff that has to be mowed at golf courses, commercial buildings, houses and elsewhere, Nagata said.

Turf is big business in Florida, say the state's sod farmers and distributors.

"The demand is strong and continues to be," said Tom Doolittle, president of Delray Beach-based TJ Turf Farm, a 125-employee distributor that has seen business double in the past five years. "Sod is the frame around the picture of a house."

The company sells sod to developers for about 5,000 houses year, and has expanded in recent years to Naples and Fort Pierce as housing markets there have grown.

Sod growers are open to new varieties, said David Dymond, president of the Florida Sod Growers Cooperative and general manager of H & H Sod in the Osceola County town of Kenansville.

"We are encouraged by Russell's research," Dymond said. "The variety has potential if it meets his expectations and does what he suggests it does."

The icon Nagata's variety must go up against is called Floratam, a variety of St. Augustine sod that's been on the market since 1973. Touted for its adaptability to different types of soils and its ability to root quickly, Floratam is the state's best-selling sod, specially developed for Southern lawns by researchers at the University of Florida and Texas A&M.

In 2000, Florida growers produced 79,820 acres of sod, of which 65 percent was St. Augustine, and 79 percent of that was Floratam, according to a UF study.

Nagata thinks his slow-growing St. Augustine, which he has not yet named, could outperform Floratam.

"This hasn't been mowed in four weeks," says Nagata, stepping into a plot of the slow-grow grass planted at the Everglades Research and Education Center. The grass, which he says grows 2 1/2 inches in two weeks, doesn't look as though it needs to be mowed even now. "It's a better green than Floratam. It's a denser grass with more blades."

Next to the experimental grass is a section of Floratam. As Nagata walks into the Floratam, it reaches the top of his ankle-high boot.

"The typical Floratam will probably be more than 7 inches high in two weeks. That's in the summer," he said.

Horizontal grow important

While Nagata continues his research through classical plant breeding, testing for disease and insect resistance, drought and shade tolerance and other qualities, he has to make sure the grass grows quickly in a horizontal direction.

"Horizontally, it needs to cover just as quickly. Sod farmers want something that grows and fills in," Nagata said.

The secret of grass growth lies in its meristem -- or growing point.

"In most plants the meristem is at the tips," Nagata said. "In grass it is at the base of the leaf. You mow off the top of the leaf and it keeps on growing."

The research center has 250 types and varieties of grasses in pots, and the slow-growing line was selected from those.

"As growers, we want the grasses that grow better. We want to give the consumer an improved product, if it is out there," said Dymond, general manager of H&H Sod in Kenansville. "We have this benchmark with Floratam. Is it better than Floratam? Is it as adaptable?"

Growers remember FX-10, a variety of St. Augustine grass released in 1990 that was supposed to be drought-tolerant, but turned out to have problems.

"We were excited about FX-10, but it did not establish. It would not put roots down in the homeowners' yard," Dymond said.

No grass is perfect, but Nagata wants to make sure his St. Augustine has no fatal flaws.

Even Floratam has become less than the perfect grass it was. When released in 1973, it was resistant to chinch bugs, but by 1985, the bugs had adapted and were freely chomping away on it, Nagata said.

The quest for perfection continues along with the lust for lawns, but grass itself is as old as -- well, the hills.

Grass is a natural controller of erosion and has been found in nature for many millions of years, said John Haydu, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida Mid-Florida Research and Education Center in Apopka.

"It is one of the most functional and reliable plant systems we've got," Haydu said. "It wasn't until the advent of the mower that people started mowing it and improving it."