Eric Watkins

By Gary Deters and Eric Watkins

This article was originally published on the Low Input Turf Using Fine Fescues blog.

Check out our team’s latest efforts in educating the public about our work. Several members of our group including Eric Watkins, Dominic Petrella (now an assistant professor at Ohio State University), Nicole Mihelich and Florence Sessoms were featured in a video, Fescue Research at the University of Minnesota, on GCSAATV.

Watch the video below to learn more about several different fine fescue research projects we are conducting!

Winter can lead to turfgrass damage and death, causing challenges for turfgrass managers. And with a changing climate, new challenges are cropping up every year.

Eric Watkins, a professor in the Department of Horticultural Science, is seeking out answers to those challenges, most recently through an $8 million USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative grant. His goal? To better understand the winter stresses that are placed on turfgrass and to identify solutions through plant breeding and best management practices.

By Eric Watkins

We have posted all 2021 turfgrass research plot data on our cultivar evaluation page for 2021. There are results posted from three types of trials.

Learn more about our research! A new article from our group has been published in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism. This research found that park users have a preference for natural turfgrass lawns and are more hesitant to use artificial turfgrass lawns, which has implications for decision-makers choosing between these two options. 

Barnes, M.R. and E. Watkins. 2022. Differences in likelihood of use between artificial and natural turfgrass lawns. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Vol 37, March 2022, 100480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2021.100480

Check out our team’s latest efforts in educating the public about our work. Eric Watkins did a podcast for Field, Lab, Earth, the podcast from the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

Listen to the podcast -  Salt-Affected Roadside Grasses with Dr. Eric Watkins - to learn more about our roadside grass research.

Members of our team will be giving talks at Northern Green, a trade show and conference dedicated to green industry professionals.  Register now for this worthwhile event!

Northern Green
January 11-13, 2022
Minneapolis Convention Center
REGISTRATION

This year’s presentations from our team include:

University of Minnesota Turfgrass Research Update

Eric Watkins
Wednesday, January 12, 7:30 AM - 8:20 AM

Learn more about our research! Three research articles from our group have been published in the September/October 2021 issue of Crop Science.

Learn more about our research! Three research articles from our group have been published in the September/October 2021 issue of Agronomy Journal.