Salt Tolerant Grass For Transportation
Turf Merchants Grass Seeds Chosen For DOT
Posted in General by Curtis Williams
TMI has been working on improving the salt tolerance of its cool season grasses for more than 10 years. A sustainable grass of the future must possess extremely high levels of saline resistance due to the increased use of recycled water, not to mention the leaching of salts in many desert climes.
For a different reason, The Minnesota crop Improvement Association (MCIA) has been doing groundbreaking turfgrass salt tolerance research for several years, specifically to address the needs of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) roadside projects. MnDOT snow plows nearly 12,000 miles of state highways and interstates in Minnesota, which equals 30,546 lane miles. The Twin Cities Metro area has 5,481 lane miles that MnDOT maintains. Minnesota’s 7-county Twin Cities area alone uses an astounding 349,000 tons of salt each year to keep the roads clear, so you can only imagine how much salt makes it into the soil profile.
Based on these trials, our own Bedazzled was one 0f 4 varieties of Kentucky bluegrass chosen for the Sod production requirements for MnDOT works. Celestial Red Fescue was 1 of only 5 creepers that were recommended for this program. Seems like we are on to something!
Go to www.mncia.org for the complete list.