Off the Record: Mike Kenna, Ph.D., reflects on the short-lived Bentgrass Breeding Consortium

In 2000, scattered around the country, bentgrass breeding programs included New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Rhode Island, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Oregon. Many of these programs operated independently of each other or were poorly funded. While there was some collaboration between public and private programs, they primarily competed in developing cultivars for golf courses.

In 2003, the USGA initiated a multi-state bentgrass breeding program to identify and develop germplasm with better pest resistance. Each program had expertise, local knowledge and environmental conditions to support identifying resistance or tolerance to pest problems in their region.

The primary objective was to develop elite clones of creeping bentgrass with multiple pest resistances and stress tolerances for commercial breeders to create new creeping bentgrass varieties broadly adapted to various environmental conditions. The USGA financially supported the establishment of the Bentgrass Breeding Consortium, which included the USDA ARS, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois and Michigan State University.

Three distinct populations of creeping bentgrass clones existed. The Wisconsin population was a cross between two clones that differed in resistance to gray and speckled snow mold. This cross, consisting of 200 clones, was also utilized in genetic linkage and disease-resistance mapping.

The Michigan population included 200 clones collected from old golf courses, mainly for their high turf quality. The Illinois population included 200 clones that represent two generations of random mating of clones collected from old golf courses in Illinois.

The experiment begins

Vegetatively propagated plants from the three populations were exchanged among the three states in February 2003. The researchers evaluated the clones maintained as golf course fairways for Pythium blight, pink and gray/speckled snow mold, dollar spot and black cutworms across all locations.

Unfortunately, the inoculations with pink snow mold, Pythium blight and black cutworm failed to provide meaningful differences among the creeping bentgrass clones. Pythium blight severely damaged all plants. For pink snow mold, minor symptoms occurred due to mild winters with little significant snow cover. For black cutworms, the lack of variation among creeping bentgrass clones was due to problems with inoculation technique and symptom measurement.

Variation among the reaction of clones within three populations was significant for the dollar spot and the two snow molds, gray (Typhula incarnata) and speckled (T. ishikariensis). The Wisconsin population had the highest ratings for gray snow mold, while the Michigan population had the highest ratings for speckled snow mold.

Similarly, for dollar spot, the Wisconsin population had the highest mean rating in Wisconsin, the Michigan population generally had the best ratings in Michigan and the Illinois population had the highest ratings in Illinois. Dollar spot ratings were considerably more consistent across ratings made at different locations or years.

Beginning of the end

The results indicated a possible long-term evolution of race-specific disease resistance on golf courses. This outcome went unnoticed by researchers when evaluating collections within a limited region. Their results underscore the importance of collaboration between researchers at different locations, allowing for the evaluation of each disease across various environmental conditions and pathogen isolates.

Ultimately, the Bentgrass Breeding Consortium released 20 clones with the highest disease resistance and turf quality to private companies for breeding new creeping bentgrass varieties.

In the following years, the consortium had limited success in future research. Unfortunately, faculty retirements or reassignments ended the collaborative research effort by 2009.

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