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While soccer fans watch their favorite teams compete in the World Cup, Rutgers University plant biologists will be looking under the players’ cleats — eyeing the lush, green natural turfgrass they created.
Ten of the tournament’s 16 soccer stadiums in the United States, Canada and Mexico will feature cultivated varieties, or cultivars, of cool-season natural turfgrass bred by the university’s team of experts. Rutgers turfgrass is being used in locations from Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field to Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, at an altitude of more than 7,000 feet, to Vancouver’s BC Place, a domed stadium.
“This is one of our flagship programs that’s world-renowned,” said Stacy Bonos, a professor of turfgrass breeding in the university’s plant biology department. “Rutgers grasses are recognized for having good turf quality and being the best overall in multiple different trials all over the country.”
While Rutgers turfgrass was also used at this year’s Masters golf tournament — and has been used at Yankee Stadium and the White House, not to mention countless lawns, parks and nonprofessional athletic fields — the spotlight is now on soccer.
FIFA World Cup fields — properly called pitches — must be able to withstand intense wear and tear from multiple grueling matches while ensuring balls dropped from 2 meters bounce between 0.6 and 1 meter, and that play remains uniform across various host cities’ climates and stadium conditions.
Michigan State University and the University of Tennessee led FIFA’s research into which turfgrass would perform best at each World Cup stadium. Their experts, in consultation with venue groundskeepers and seed companies, selected Rutgers-bred cultivars as the top choice in most cases, according to Bonos.
In addition to Philadelphia, Mexico City and Vancouver, Rutgers cool-season turfgrass will be used in Toronto, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle.
More: An inside look at Rutgers hosting Senegal as a World Cup base camp
Turfgrasses bred for warmer temperatures do not perform as well in colder weather, shade or low-light environments such as domes compared with their cool-season counterparts. MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands — renamed New York New Jersey Stadium for the tournament — will use a warm-season Bermuda grass variety not bred at Rutgers when matches are played there.
James Murphy, an extension specialist in Rutgers’ plant biology department, oversaw the tolerance testing on the university’s turfgrass that helped confirm its durability for World Cup play. He will watch the matches, but his focus will be on how the turfgrass performs.
“I can’t help but watch what the field does. That’s in my nature. That’s what I do for a living,” said Murphy, whose expertise includes turfgrass management. “It’s very rewarding to watch after an event how well the fields hold up. And it’s great to see them recover so that, by the next time they’re played on, they’re in good playing shape.”
Testing turfgrass for resistance to stress — and breeding the toughest surviving varieties over successive generations — is vital for a successful World Cup, where 104 matches will be played from June 11 to July 19 at 16 venues, with most pitches hosting six or seven games.
Rutgers turfgrass is tested with a wear machine that strikes the blades with rubber paddles about 12 to 15 inches long, 1 inch wide and a half-inch thick, attached in a triangular formation to a spinning axle.
More: Morocco picks Central Jersey base for World Cup, boosting local spotlight
“It spins around and paddles away at the turf and kind of wears and tears the grass,” Murphy said. Testing takes place at a 206-acre Rutgers research farm in Freehold and a smaller on-campus site in North Brunswick. “It does dent the surface a little bit, like the cleat on an athlete’s shoe.”
To produce the most wear-tolerant turfgrass, Bonos and other plant biologists intercross the plants most resilient to stress, repeating the breeding cycle over generations.
“We sort of speed up natural selection in that way,” Bonos said.
Tuckahoe Turf Farms in Hammonton, about 70 miles south of Rutgers–New Brunswick, grows sod on 900 acres, including its registered trademark Game Day Sod. This turfgrass blend contains Blue Note, Bolt and Legend Kentucky bluegrass varieties — all developed at Rutgers — that were installed at Gillette Stadium near Boston in late March and at Lincoln Financial Field in early May, said Allen Carter, chief financial officer of Tuckahoe Turf Farms.
“We maintain it here on the farm just as if it were at a stadium. So as soon as we unroll that carpet, they can play on it,” said Carter, who also heads the New Jersey Farm Bureau. “Our rolls are 4 feet wide and approximately 40 feet long, and they weigh almost 2,000 pounds. So when we put them in, they’re not going anywhere.”
More: Some private buses, car services will get World Cup fans to MetLife
Rutgers began its turfgrass breeding program in 1962 under C. Reed Funk, whose pioneering work included developing an earlier cool-season turfgrass that became the standard on European soccer fields.
Rutgers turfgrass varieties now account for between 35% and 40% of the world’s grass seed production, according to Bonos. The university conducts research on 10 cool-season turfgrass species, including bentgrass, which is used on golf greens because it can be mowed below one-tenth of an inch.
The university works with about 25 seed companies worldwide, licensing its varieties and earning royalties from commercial sales that help fund ongoing research.
Rutgers’ efforts have helped drive economic growth in the sector. The university’s most recent analysis found the turfgrass industry contributed $4.9 billion to New Jersey’s economy and supported 59,159 jobs in 2019.
“Seeing Rutgers turfgrass on the world stage is very rewarding because it validates the mission of the program that was initiated over 60 years ago and the research that we do each day,” Bonos said, “which is to develop the best-quality turfgrasses that perform well under many stresses.”
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Rutgers turfgrass chosen for most 2026 World Cup stadiums
Continue reading...
Ten of the tournament’s 16 soccer stadiums in the United States, Canada and Mexico will feature cultivated varieties, or cultivars, of cool-season natural turfgrass bred by the university’s team of experts. Rutgers turfgrass is being used in locations from Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field to Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, at an altitude of more than 7,000 feet, to Vancouver’s BC Place, a domed stadium.
“This is one of our flagship programs that’s world-renowned,” said Stacy Bonos, a professor of turfgrass breeding in the university’s plant biology department. “Rutgers grasses are recognized for having good turf quality and being the best overall in multiple different trials all over the country.”
While Rutgers turfgrass was also used at this year’s Masters golf tournament — and has been used at Yankee Stadium and the White House, not to mention countless lawns, parks and nonprofessional athletic fields — the spotlight is now on soccer.
FIFA World Cup fields — properly called pitches — must be able to withstand intense wear and tear from multiple grueling matches while ensuring balls dropped from 2 meters bounce between 0.6 and 1 meter, and that play remains uniform across various host cities’ climates and stadium conditions.
Michigan State University and the University of Tennessee led FIFA’s research into which turfgrass would perform best at each World Cup stadium. Their experts, in consultation with venue groundskeepers and seed companies, selected Rutgers-bred cultivars as the top choice in most cases, according to Bonos.
In addition to Philadelphia, Mexico City and Vancouver, Rutgers cool-season turfgrass will be used in Toronto, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle.
More: An inside look at Rutgers hosting Senegal as a World Cup base camp
Turfgrasses bred for warmer temperatures do not perform as well in colder weather, shade or low-light environments such as domes compared with their cool-season counterparts. MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands — renamed New York New Jersey Stadium for the tournament — will use a warm-season Bermuda grass variety not bred at Rutgers when matches are played there.
James Murphy, an extension specialist in Rutgers’ plant biology department, oversaw the tolerance testing on the university’s turfgrass that helped confirm its durability for World Cup play. He will watch the matches, but his focus will be on how the turfgrass performs.
“I can’t help but watch what the field does. That’s in my nature. That’s what I do for a living,” said Murphy, whose expertise includes turfgrass management. “It’s very rewarding to watch after an event how well the fields hold up. And it’s great to see them recover so that, by the next time they’re played on, they’re in good playing shape.”
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Testing turfgrass for resistance to stress — and breeding the toughest surviving varieties over successive generations — is vital for a successful World Cup, where 104 matches will be played from June 11 to July 19 at 16 venues, with most pitches hosting six or seven games.
Rutgers turfgrass is tested with a wear machine that strikes the blades with rubber paddles about 12 to 15 inches long, 1 inch wide and a half-inch thick, attached in a triangular formation to a spinning axle.
More: Morocco picks Central Jersey base for World Cup, boosting local spotlight
“It spins around and paddles away at the turf and kind of wears and tears the grass,” Murphy said. Testing takes place at a 206-acre Rutgers research farm in Freehold and a smaller on-campus site in North Brunswick. “It does dent the surface a little bit, like the cleat on an athlete’s shoe.”
To produce the most wear-tolerant turfgrass, Bonos and other plant biologists intercross the plants most resilient to stress, repeating the breeding cycle over generations.
“We sort of speed up natural selection in that way,” Bonos said.
You must be registered for see images attach
Tuckahoe Turf Farms in Hammonton, about 70 miles south of Rutgers–New Brunswick, grows sod on 900 acres, including its registered trademark Game Day Sod. This turfgrass blend contains Blue Note, Bolt and Legend Kentucky bluegrass varieties — all developed at Rutgers — that were installed at Gillette Stadium near Boston in late March and at Lincoln Financial Field in early May, said Allen Carter, chief financial officer of Tuckahoe Turf Farms.
“We maintain it here on the farm just as if it were at a stadium. So as soon as we unroll that carpet, they can play on it,” said Carter, who also heads the New Jersey Farm Bureau. “Our rolls are 4 feet wide and approximately 40 feet long, and they weigh almost 2,000 pounds. So when we put them in, they’re not going anywhere.”
More: Some private buses, car services will get World Cup fans to MetLife
Rutgers began its turfgrass breeding program in 1962 under C. Reed Funk, whose pioneering work included developing an earlier cool-season turfgrass that became the standard on European soccer fields.
Rutgers turfgrass varieties now account for between 35% and 40% of the world’s grass seed production, according to Bonos. The university conducts research on 10 cool-season turfgrass species, including bentgrass, which is used on golf greens because it can be mowed below one-tenth of an inch.
You must be registered for see images attach
The university works with about 25 seed companies worldwide, licensing its varieties and earning royalties from commercial sales that help fund ongoing research.
Rutgers’ efforts have helped drive economic growth in the sector. The university’s most recent analysis found the turfgrass industry contributed $4.9 billion to New Jersey’s economy and supported 59,159 jobs in 2019.
“Seeing Rutgers turfgrass on the world stage is very rewarding because it validates the mission of the program that was initiated over 60 years ago and the research that we do each day,” Bonos said, “which is to develop the best-quality turfgrasses that perform well under many stresses.”
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Rutgers turfgrass chosen for most 2026 World Cup stadiums
Continue reading...
