Last week I had the opportunity to visit Oregon State University to teach one session of Dr. Rob Golembiewski's Principles of Turfgrass Maintenance class. In the morning lecture, I spoke about turfgrass maintenance in Asia and what some of the distinguishing differences are compared with typical turfgrass management in the Pacific Northwest. In the afternoon, I met with the turf club to discuss internships, career opportunities, and some of the interesting things about working in the turfgrass industry in Asia.
I also visited the turfgrass research farm and saw the various grasses and experimental trials. Brian McDonald is the research assistant for turf management at OSU and he showed me some of the interesting research being done with fertilizer trials, fungicides, herbicides, mowing and rolling, irrigation, grass variety trials, divot recovery, and even some seashore paspalum research. My interest in turfgrass research started when I did earthworm control and herbicide research at this farm in 1998, just before graduating from OSU.
The amount of research being done now is impressive and I got to see a lot of Poa annua, perennial ryegrass, red thread, pink snow mold, brown blight -- all grasses or diseases that I don't see all the time when I am working with warm-season grasses. Every time I got down for a close inspection of grass disease symptoms, June the Research Cat came over to say hello. She is, I'm informed, the farm's environmentally-friendly method of rodent control.
For more information about the turfgrass program at Oregon State University, check out www.beaverturf.com.

