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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Washington, D.C. » National Arboretum » Floral and Nursery Plants Research » Research » Research Project #445924

Research Project: Understanding Thatch Accumulation in Creeping and Colonial Bentgrass, and its Association with Dollar Spot Disease Progression

Location: Floral and Nursery Plants Research

Project Number: 8020-21500-002-004-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Oct 1, 2024
End Date: Dec 31, 2026

Objective:
Thatch is a loose, intermingled organic layer that occurs between the green matter and the soil surface. Excessive thatch prevents air, water and nutrients from reaching turfgrass roots and leads to insect and disease damage. The objective of the proposed research is to determine 1) how thatch develops in creeping and colonial bentgrass, 2) the relationship between thatch development and disease resistance, and 3) genomic markers associated with growth habit (rhizome vs stolon), dollar spot resistance, and thatch build-up by leveraging AI-driven genotyping and phenotyping technologies to develop turf germplasm that produces less thatch.

Approach:
Two hundred twenty interspecific hybrid lines derived from a cross of creeping and colonial bentgrasses that are segregating for (1) thatch build-up, (2) disease resistance, and (3) growth pattern (stolon vs rhizome) will be grown in the field in a randomized complete block design with six clonal replications. Temporal progression of these three phenotypes will be evaluated at the anatomical, physiological, molecular, and biochemical levels to understand their associated relationships. QTL mapping will be performed to identify genomic markers associated with these phenotypes.