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While the old song “Tiny Bubbles” lauds the happy effervescence of a glass of sparkling wine, new University of Georgia research on nanobubbles seeks to discover whether the tiniest of bubbles can hold beneficial properties for turfgrass.

When the University of Georgia Bulldogs take the field against the University of Florida Gators for their annual football rivalry on Saturday, the teams will be playing in neutral territory at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, Florida. But the grass they are playing on could be considered home turf for the Dawgs.

When professional golfer Patrick Cantlay sank the birdie that won him the 2021 PGA TOUR Championship, he did it on turf that had been tested that morning by a student from the University of Georgia’s Griffin campus.

When it comes to taking care of a lawn — whether at home or on a golf course — proper watering makes the difference between a beautiful landscape and a muddy mess. Knowing when and where to water turfgrass can be a tricky process, but thanks to a group of researchers at the University of Georgia and Rutgers University, lawn irrigation could soon be much easier to handle.

For nearly 50 years, turfgrass researcher Wayne Hanna pursued his professional goals at the University of Georgia, first with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), then as a full professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The Summer Olympics may be in Japan this year, but Team USA was on home turf when they took the field for today’s Opening Ceremony. The Japan National Stadium’s field is currently sodded with TifSport bermudagrass, developed in south Georgia. One of many grass varieties created and tested at the University of Georgia’s Tifton Campus, TifSport is a dense, medium- to fine-textured grass bred to withstand the high traffic sports fields see while tolerating herbicides.

It is said that if you find a job you love, you will never work a day in your life. For Alfredo Martinez-Espinoza, this has come true through his work as a plant pathologist with University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. His passion and hard work have been recognized with the American Phytopathological Society’s (APS) 2021 Excellence in Extension award.

Over the past few decades, pollinators have been in decline worldwide, which is concerning because 70% of crops used for human food depend on pollinators. Turfgrasses – used for most residential lawns – often take some of the blame for pollinator decline as they are known to be wind-pollinated and were thought not to serve as a pollinator food source, until now.

If seeing the turfgrass during the Super Bowl has you itching to unfurl sod for a new lawn, it will likely cost a bit more than usual, according to a report by the University of Georgia.

Modeling clay isn’t limited to art classrooms and sculpting studios. University of Georgia researchers developed a tool to track beneficial insects in turfgrass systems using clay models. Tracking these good predators can help develop eco-friendly pest management techniques for both home lawns and commercial sod growers.