On June 3—4, 2015, the OSU Turf Science program also hosted the Specialty Crop Research Initiative’s fifth annual summer meeting at the Education Center at the Botanic Gardens at OSU.

The meeting was attended by turf breeders, extension specialists, and researchers from Texas A&M University, University of Georgia, University of Florida, North Carolina State University and OSU. Their collective goal is to explore plant genetics and genomics to improve drought and salinity tolerance for sustainable turfgrass production in the southern United States using grant funding from the SCRI program.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the purpose of SCRI is to address the critical needs of the specialty crop industry by awarding grants to support research and extension. These functions must address the key challenges of national and regional, sustainability concerning all components of food and agriculture, including conventional and organic food production systems.

Dennis Martin, professor and turfgrass extension and research specialist, began the meeting with a field tour of the Turf Center and an overview of the SCRI funded turfgrass studies. The next day, Yanqi Wu, associate professor of plant breeding and genetics, showed attendees the Agronomy Farm.

Meeting topics included a project update and summary from Ambika Chandra, assistant professor of turfgrass breeding & molecular genetics at Texas A&M, as well as updates from school representatives in attendance. Tracy Boyer, associate professor of agriculture economics.