The Turfgrass Science team from the University of Minnesota was well-represented at this year’s ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meetings held on October 29 - November 1, 2023 in St. Louis, MO. Two people gave oral presentations and three people presented posters. Below is a listing of all the oral presentations and posters along with the presentation abstracts and University Digital Conservancy links for the poster PDF files.
Oral presentations
Cultivating New Opportunities for Turfgrass Science Education in Minnesota
Presenting author: Michael Barnes; co-authors: Ileana Campagna, Becky Haddad, and Eric Watkins
Abstract
Turfgrass dominated managed urban landscapes (e.g., parks, yards) are a central component of urban ecosystems in Minnesota, the United States, and around the world. These landscapes can require a significant amount of labor, management, and research work in order to maximize ecosystem services. Despite the importance of these landscapes and the variety of associated careers available, there remains a significant deficit of workers as well as students interested in these critical landscapes, which is only projected to grow in the future. One area which remains understudied is how often managed urban landscape curricula are even present in undergraduate majors. The current study utilized a systematic examination of higher education institutions in the state of Minnesota to assess the state of managed urban landscape curricula (MULC) across multiple disciplines. Overall, managed urban landscape curricula was rare, making up an estimated 0.4% out of all courses reviewed (~51,000). However, there are significant opportunities to expand the reach of MULC into a broad range of disciplines that could help expose a greater number of undergraduate students to these critical landscapes and foster an interest in careers related to them.
Progressing Towards Biocontainment in Perennial Ryegrass with Improved Transformation Protocols
Presenting author: Jonathan Cors
Abstract
A new biocontainment method named Engineered Genetic Incompatibility (EGI) has been proven to work in both yeast and Drosophila melanogaster. It utilizes CRISPR activators to overexpress integral genes leading to plant death as a result. As such, the only necessity for EGI to work within a species is the ability for CRISPR activators to work as well as having genes that when overexpressed can cause death. This biocontainment method has great potential to work in turfgrass, allowing for the further introgression of other beneficial genes. This talk will cover several experiments progressing towards this goal of EGI in turfgrass that have been conducted in the turfgrass species perennial ryegrass. Largely it will cover several aspects of perennial ryegrass transformation protocols have been tested and optimized, such as improvements in published callus culture protocols and testing of new protocols utilizing embryonic genes such as Wus and Bbm to produce embryonic callus. While these experiments have been conducted with EGI in mind, all of them can be utilized for general turfgrass transformation.
Posters
Impact of Drought Stress on Cool-Season Turfgrass: Comparative Analysis of Mixture and Monoculture Responses
Presenting author: Jillian Turbeville; co-authors: Florence Sessoms and Eric Watkins
Abstract
Turfgrass seed mixtures in the green industry are important for public use as grass seed can be used in a variety of spaces and settings. Seed mixtures provide genetic diversity and take advantage of the various positive aspects of each specific turfgrass species. Heat and drought stress tolerant turfgrass species can be incorporated into these mixtures for combating increasingly hot summers as well as, increased sustainable water use and conservation. In this study, we want to find the most optimal cool-season turfgrass species mixture and evaluate the effect of mycorrhizal inoculation for improved drought tolerance.
University Digital Conservancy poster access
Optimizing Methods for Turfgrass Metabolomics
Presenting author: Katrina Freund; co-authors: Adrian Hegeman and Eric Watkins
Abstract
Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is an economically important turfgrass and forage grass. Although its rapid germination and quick establishment make it a valuable component of lawns, its use in northern climates is limited by its susceptibility to prolonged periods of extreme low temperatures and efforts are underway to develop cold-tolerant cultivars. A plant’s tolerance to freezing is the result of various physiological and metabolic changes that occur during the cold acclimation process. Previous research has identified genes associated with cold acclimation in perennial ryegrass, and work in other grass species has identified amino acids, soluble sugars, fructans, phenylpropanoids, and phytohormones associated with increased membrane stability, slowed growth, and reduced freezing. However, little is known about metabolic changes and their correlation with transcriptome changes in perennial ryegrass throughout the acclimation process. Prior to a large-scale screening of diverse perennial ryegrass accessions for the association of freezing tolerance with specific metabolites, standardized methods to assess appropriate sampling time points and tissue types must be established. Untargeted UHPLC-MS methods, in combination with traditional screens for cold tolerance (e.g. LT50) and transcriptomic analyses, were utilized to 1) examine the correlation between metabolite profiles of different tissue types to determine if leaf tissue is a useful proxy for destructive sampling of crown tissue and 2) determine when peak gene expression for cold tolerance occurs to better determine sampling days that best capture overall expression trends. This work is guiding the development of cold-tolerant perennial ryegrass germplasm while also establishing standardized procedures for expanding comprehensive transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic profiling methods to further turfgrass species.
University Digital Conservancy poster access
Twin Cities Assessment of Turfgrass and Bee Lawn Flora
Presenting author: Ryan Schwab; co-authors: Eric Watkins, Jillian Turbeville, Dominic Christensen, Susannah Lerman and Adam Kay
Abstract
An inventory of plant species found in home lawns across the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area was carried out in 2022. This is part of the Long Term Ecological Research Project exploring urban nature. Lawn diversity of traditional turfgrass lawns and bee lawns, along with other factors (presence of irrigation, lawn height, soil moisture, etc) will be presented.