Penn State News
Recent and Noteworthy Developments in the PSU Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics Program By David R. Huff, Chris Benson, and Matt Sheltra, Dept of Plant Science, Pennsylvania State University
Notable accomplishments by the Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics Program in 2020 include: • Award of a $268K portion of a $4.3 million multi-institutional grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop tools for genomics-assisted breeding in polyploid specialty crops. Participants include life scientists across the US and Europe, South America, and New Zealand. • Receipt of a $10K Tree-of-Life Award from Dovetail Genomics (Scotts Valley, CA) to sequence the buffalograss genome. Through subsequent collaboration with University of Nebraska scientists, we successfully parlayed that award into a further $20K grant necessary to complete the approximate 430 million nucleotide
base sequencing. Buffalograss typifies the American shortgrass prairie region more than any other native plant species. • The discovery that greens-type Poa annua is capable of remembering whether it is being mowed or not and can pass along these memories to its seed progeny. This exciting discovery, i.e. that a turfgrass that can remember imposed culture, was published in Crop Science (Benson, C.L., Q. Mao, and D.R. Huff. 2020. Global DNA methylation predicts epigenetic reprogramming and transgenerational plasticity in Poa annua L. https://doi. org/10.1002/csc2.20337) • Successful entry of three experimental creeping bentgrass varieties into the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program’s 2020 putting green trial, a 5-yr evaluation conducted at 19 locations across the US.
R E SE ARC H UPDAT E:
We
The Turfgrass Entomology Laboratory
are currently managing multiple projects across Pennsylvania including annual bluegrass weevil (ABW) resistance to insecticides, earthworm biology and cultural control, and insecticide trials targeting multiple pests. PhD candidate Garrett Price is investigating how insecticide resistance may be affected by insect gut microbiome. His work is critical to determining how resistance evolves and may provide solutions for reversing resistance in pests like ABW. Audrey Simard joined the lab prior to the pandemic and is now ramping up her project investigating turfgrasses’ defense against herbivory. We hope to use her findings to develop strategies to prime plants in advance of insect feeding to reduce insecticide load and/or assist in breeding better defended turfgrasses. We have also been busy travelling to various field sites to scout for insects. As expected, we have observed some lingering damage
from chinch bugs (from end of summer 2020) on turf failing to green-up in spring. We are continuing to monitor these populations with environmental conditions. Areas affected by chinch bug in 2020 grow larger should the spring continue to track on the warmer and drier side. We are also waiting to see whether the large crane fly flights in Fall 2020 translate into greater amounts damaged turf (~ April-May 2021). Lastly, Danny Kline has been diligently working on getting our laboratory website up and running:
plantscience.psu.edu/research /labs/turfgrass-entomology We hope to post news stories, research publications, and turfgrass insect factsheets throughout the year.
ALUMNI UPDATES COLLIN HARLEY (Cert. ’14) is now the golf course superintendent at St. David’s GC in Wayne, PA.
20 Pennsylvania Turfgrass • Summer 2021
CAMERON STEPHENS (MS AGRO ’18) has been selected the 2021 Award of Excellence recipient by the Musser Intl. Turfgrass Foundation.
