Seed production

Perennial ryegrass growing degree days (GDD)

Perennial ryegrass GDDs will be tracked during the 2025 growing season with comparisons to the previous seven years. The accumulation of GDDs will begin after the snow has melted from the perennial ryegrass fields and continue through swathing. A base temperature of 32 °F will be used for perennial ryegrass GDD model.

Perennial ryegrass growing degree days (GDD)

Perennial ryegrass GDDs will be tracked during the 2025 growing season with comparisons to the previous seven years. The accumulation of GDDs will begin after the snow has melted from the perennial ryegrass fields and continue through swathing. A base temperature of 32 °F will be used for perennial ryegrass GDD model.

Perennial ryegrass growing degree days (GDD)

Perennial ryegrass GDDs will be tracked in the 2024 growing season with comparisons to the previous seven years. The accumulation of GDDs will begin after the snow has melted from the perennial ryegrass fields and continue through swathing. A base temperature of 32 °F will be used for perennial ryegrass (Temperature - Base = 32 °F)

By Jillian Turbeville

Last year I had the privilege of traveling up to northern Minnesota, nearly ten miles south of the Canadian border, once every month between May and October. These road trips took me six hours from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus to the quaint town of Roseau. Best known for its snowmobile manufacturing and as a destination for hunting and fishing, Roseau stands out more uniquely to me for its agricultural aspects. As a graduate student, I am invested in learning about this unique ecoregion that provides ideal conditions for cool-season turfgrass seed production.

Save the date for the annual Minnesota Turf Seed Council and University of Minnesota Grass Seed Meeting! This year's meeting will be Wednesday, February 26 from 8:30 a.m.

The University of Minnesota will be holding grass seed and hybrid rye field tours at the Magnusson Research Farm in Roseau, MN on Thursday, June 27, 2024.

Learn more about our research! A new, open access article by Florence Breuillin-Sessoms, Dominic Petrella, Nancy Ehlke, Donn Vellekson and Eric Watkins has been published in the journal Crop Science. This article discusses the research in which several cultivars of Chewings, hard and strong creeping red fescue were interseeded with spring wheat to examine the potential of this method for seed production in northern Minnesota. Unfortunately, this cropping system did not seem optimal for fine fescue seed production so more research is needed. 

• August 9, 2022
• August 2, 2022
• July 26, 2022
• July 19, 2022
• July 12, 2022

• April 20, 2021
• April 27, 2021
• May 4, 2021
• May 11, 2021
• May 18, 2021