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Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center,
formerly Plantation Field Laboratory, at the old location on Peters
Road, 1968. Photograph by Dr. Kerry K. Steward. |
University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and
Education Center has served urban communities of southeast Florida since
1953. The turf and landscape component of our mission is to provide
scientifically accurate information on the production and maintenance
of environmental plants. There are three major areas of work: new
varieties, pest management, and water. In each, Fort Lauderdale
REC continues to have a huge role in improving the quality of life in
south Florida.
New Plant Varieties
The cultivar Floratam,
released for its chinch bug resistance in 1973, dominates sod production
throughout Florida, and represents a $200 million crop annually.
The largest concentration of production in Florida is Palm Beach County.
If you talk to old-timers about lawns before Floratam, they will tell
you that there were great problems in maintaining a lawn in an environmentally
conscientious manner, because of the frequent need to treat with dangerous
pesticides. Most of the research and all the original planting stock
of Floratam came directly from Fort Lauderdale REC.
Environmental Pest Management
UF-IFAS
scientists at Fort Lauderdale REC have since described new diseases such
as bermudagrass decline and take-all root rot disease of St. Augustinegrass,
new more virulent strains of the southern chinch bug, nematode biotypes,
new weed problems, and a host of other plagues that attack lawns, golf
courses, and other urban plants in south Florida. Most of the maladies
have some equivalent in other areas of the subtropical world, but are
not studied anywhere else in the continental US, because the problems
are not temperate problems. Working with the Extension Service,
Fort Lauderdale scientists have been successful in delivering timely information
on new pests, and most importantly, environmentally prudent ways of dealing
with urban plant pests. New varieties have continued to be developed,
including new germplasm of St. Augustinegrass resistant to drought, chinch
bugs, and diseases.
The commonly
used lawn pesticides in 1953 included such products as chlordane and DDT.
Since then, there has been a tremendous improvement in the safety of pesticides
used on turf. Much of that accomplishment has been due to research
by scientists at Fort Lauderdale, who evaluate new herbicides and other
management tools, and actually develop and deliver new techniques through
publications, patents, and electronic methods of delivery. The goal
is to enable the Extension Service to base recommendations on the most
accurate information, appropriate to south Florida growing conditions.
For example, the late Dr. Ev Burt, of the Fort Lauderdale REC, was
instrumental in developing atrazine as an herbicide for lawns, in 1958.
This was another major boon to sod producers and homeowners. Now
in the new millennium, we realize that with increasing urban density,
proximity to groundwater, and the solubility of atrazine, we need replacement
alternatives. One project is evaluating new chemicals that are highly
specific for broadleaf weed control in lawns, effective at rates of less
than 1/2 ounce per acre.
Biological Control
With the biological
control emphasis at Fort Lauderdale, we are providing alternatives to
pesticides altogether. As examples, Fort Lauderdale REC was the
site of introduction of a parasitic wasp and other agents that kill the
tawny mole cricket, a serious pest of turf. Scientists are working
on the local strains of bacteria that control nematodes. The weed
control program is evaluating the non-herbicidal management of dollarweed,
a serious pest of St. Augustinegrass. Although the popular
belief is that overwatering contributes to dollarweed infestation, there
is no scientific basis to prove that, or to describe how and when to water
to avoid or reduce dollarweed problems. The new study will compare
irrigation regimes, from the traditional south Florida "30 minutes a day"
watering, to more judicious approaches, which may provide healthier turf
while reducing leaching into the groundwater. As with most of our
field projects, it is a 3-year study, which is necessary because it would
be dangerous if the Extension Service were to base recommendations on
only one year of data.
Groundwater Protection
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Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center,
1982. Photograph by Dr. Philip Busey. |
Fort Lauderdale REC produced in the late 1960s a classic
study of water use by turfgrass, that has been used by scientists worldwide
to understand the relationship of irrigation practices, rainfall, and
conservation. Emerging into the 21st century, Fort Lauderdale scientists
have developed the technology to precisely quantify the amount of agrochemicals,
including nitrates and pesticides escaping into the urban environment.
Leaching losses can be quite great under specific circumstances, so the
research tested and then proved ways turf managers can greatly reduce
the negative impact of fertilization. Approaches such as insoluble
and slow release fertilizers and fertigation were most beneficial in south
Florida.
A great area
of interest is the choice of vegetation and mulched beds possibly to reduce
the nutrient and pesticide runoff and leaching from turf areas.
Preliminary results from a very ambitious landscape mountain are showing
that the widespread replacement of turf may be unfounded, because over
time the cumulative loss from the mulched vegetation is actually greater
than from properly managed turf areas.
Delivery to Taxpayers
All these efforts
in developing environmental turf and environmental turf management are
done with the active involvement by County Extension faculty and working
turfgrass managers, including very strong support of 400 area golf courses,
and students. The turf and landscape classes at Fort Lauderdale
provide the same curriculum as other University of Florida-IFAS locations,
but involving many hands-on examples. It is common to see a lab
class getting a sample of a research by actually participating in measurements
and evaluations.
Turf students
at Fort Lauderdale are nontraditional in the sense that they are older,
have families, and have full-time jobs, compared with a traditional residency
campus. The new Turfgrass IDS (Interdisciplinnary Studies) curriculum
therefore accommodates these students by providing their classes in the
late afternoon, nights, or weekends.
Turfgrass Science: Basic or Applied?
Science often
measures results in terms of publications, which are important landmarks
of progress. Our refereed articles on turf have passed the gauntlet
of criticism by our colleagues nationally and internationally, before
being accepted in scientific journals. Fort Lauderdale scientists
have competed substantially well in output compared with similar colleagues
statewide and nationally, in terms of refereed publications. It
is this level of validity about our research that is ultimately important
to the taxpayers, because it is the difference between results that withstand
scrutiny and those that don't.
We also accept
the task of doing research on local problems, using as much as possible
actual field locations. There are very few studies done entirely
in the laboratory. Field research occurs both at Fort Lauderdale
Research Education Center, and through the strong cooperation of turf
managers, at representative locations in the community. Together
these efforts are a program threaded into the other similar efforts at
Fort Lauderdale on biological control of Melaleuca, environmental restoration
of wetlands, protection of structures from termites, and education of
turfgrass resource managers.
While
this is science and education in the purest sense, it is also science
applied to the local needs of producing and maintaining landscape plants
in south Florida.
References
University
of Florida Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center home page:
http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu
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