SunnilandSUPERSpotlight: Dr. Bryan Unruh
Firmly Rooted in the Turfgrass Industry
Dr. Bryan Unruh’s interest in turfgrass first began when he was just a kid mowing lawns in his hometown of Dodge City, KS. Now, he is a Professor of Environmental Horticulture at the University of Florida, IFAS, West Florida Research and Education Center in Jay, FL. Unruh’s work in the green industry started when he attended a lawnmower safety course taught be the County Agriculture Agent. A career in turfgrass management was never considered as Unruh finished high school with the intention to become a corporate attorney. After giving thought to the idea of a desk job and seven and a half years to be an attorney, he ended up taking a different route. Instead, Unruh ended up going to school for 10.5 years and during that time developed a greater interest in horticulture. Between his freshman and sophomore year of undergrad at Kansas State University, Unruh worked for one of his friends that owned one of the largest lawn care companies in Western Kansas. He did a lot of bidding and estimating work for his friend and helped run a few crews. “Then when I went back to school my sophomore year, I probably was a little too focused on the extracurricular activities,” Unruh shared. During that sophomore year he realized a lot of students were going 44
into golf course management and he didn’t have any experience with golf courses to know if he was even interested. One day, Unruh spoke with the local Country Club superintendent that lived nearby his parents, about a job opportunity. “The summer before my junior year I worked on the golf course and it really changed my life in the sense that, I’d never rake pine needles underneath a pine tree for four dollars again,” Unruh joked. “That summer I also worked installing residential irrigation systems.” He went into his junior year at Kansas State heavily focused on academics to get his grade point average up. The Heart of America Golf Course Superintendents gave him a scholarship and he used the funds to go with his advisor to the National Scientific Meeting in Anaheim, California. This is where he was first introduced to the research realm of the turfgrass industry. He became inspired and upon returning, Unruh decided to pursue his master’s from Kansas State University. From there, he went on to Iowa State for his Ph.D. and then started working at the University of Florida in January 1996, 25 years ago. University of Florida Unruh considers himself an oldschool extension specialist. He was hired initially as 70% teaching and
30% extension with no formal research appointment (even though he launched the start of building a large research facility). But he says that changed within just one year of being at UF, due to the changing needs of the turfgrass industry. “I don’t think you can do good extension work sitting in your office. You’ve got to be out of the trenches and so I started traveling around Florida,” he shared. After 14 years at UF, he passed the baton in the teaching program and became fully committed to UF’s turfgrass research efforts and is now a senior faculty member, which he says sounds better than being called the “old guy at UF.” “The problems are increasingly complex. We, as practitioners, tend to want to simplify things but Earth is an amazingly complex system,” he said. “I guess probably the last decade of my work has really been trying to parse out the inner workings and relations.” Unruh explained what started as looking into what fertilizer lasts the longest quickly became a realization of determining the environmental impacts of fertilization. “We’re quick to say grass is good for the environment. It has a lot of ecosystem services, a lot of attributes when properly managed and that is the crux of it,” Unruh said. “We’re dealing with everything from your average homeowner who thinks a little bit is good and a lot of it would be better. All the way to the corporate companies that want to try a one size fits all approach.” Unruh shares that he loves that no two days are the same in his position. One day he’ll be in a suit and tie in Washington, D.C. speaking to the Administrator of the EPA and the next he’ll be in work boots laying sod. “That’s pretty enjoyable. I’m a problem solver so you can send me a picture of something but it’s not really the same as digging in and trying to figure out the solution to the challenge,” he said. Best Management Practices In 2000, a discussion on restricting fertilizer in Jacksonville led to a Golf Central • Volume 22, Issue 3
