Extension Highlights

Well bred turf

Photo: Ian Churchill

Turf pathologist Geunhwa Jung is looking forward to the summer.

That could probably be said of almost any New Englander in March. But Geunhwa Jung (pronounced gun-wa jong) is really looking forward to summer.

That is when the new assistant professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences at UMass Amherst will have an opportunity to shift his focus from the lab to the green, green grass of the Joseph Troll Turf Research Center in South Deerfield. When that happens, he will be armed with some powerful new research.

“You will see everything change there,” Jung said fondly of the university research farm at the base of Mount Sugarloaf. “The grass will be thick and green and healthy. It will be beautiful.”

Jung’s grass will be thick, healthy and green not because of chemicals, but rather because of breeding. Most specifically, it will be healthy because Dr. Jung will be familiar with every detail of its genetic makeup, and will have designed it to be particularly disease resistant.

Geunhwa Jung stands out nationally as a turfgrass pathologist whose focus is genetics and breeding of turfgrass using molecular tools, and he is bringing a new kind of basic research emphasis to a program that has been ranked in the very top tier of university turf programs. His addition to faculty also reflects the continuing importance of turf to regional economy and the state environment, and UMass Amherst commitment to remaining at the forefront of cutting edge turfgrass research.

The leap was not as enormous as it may sound. Turf grass has important genetic similarities to other “monocots,” such as corn, wheat and rice.

Jung’s journey to a singular position in the world of turf research has, by his own admission, been anything but direct.

A native of Seoul, South Korea, Jung did his undergraduate work there in horticulture, with an emphasis on vegetable breeding and genetics. After completing a PhD at the University of Nebraska, he moved on Madison, Wisconsin to do post doctoral work in horticulture and then become assistant professor and turfgrass pathologist in plant pathology department at the University of Wisconsin. It was there that the opportunity arose to do very good basic research in turf pathology.

“I had zero experience, but I did my homework, and spent time at the university research farm,” he recalls. “I learned how to approach turf pathology in a different way – in a genetic way with the latest DNA technology.”

The leap was not as enormous as it may sound. Turf grass has important genetic similarities to other “monocots,” such as corn, wheat and rice.

“On a molecular level, they are very similar,” says Jung. That has made it possible for him to apply much of what he has come to know about genetics to the problems of plant pathology, and to apply lesson learned regarding the genetics of edible crops to the specific problems of turf pathology. Advances, for instance, in breeding oats that are resistant to the fungus crown rust, can lead to advances in breeding turf grass that is also resistant to crown rust. The same mechanisms that lead to greater milk production for cows, can also create better golf course fairways.

“It has to do with ‘synteny,’” explains Jung. “The gene order is almost identical.”

Ultimately better breeding leads to significant reductions in pesticide and fertilizer use as well.

“Fungus loves the kind of unbalanced growth that excess fertilizer creates,” he says. As a pathologist, I know that if grass looks green and healthy because of the addition of excess fertilizer, it is vulnerable to fungus.”

That is why Jung is eager to move his work out of the lab and out to the research center. Whereas genetic experiments there previously relied, in part, on a process of trial and error in the attempt to foster certain characteristics, Jung is able to do his DNA screening for disease resistant plants in the lab. By the time he gets to the farm, he knows the genetic characteristics of his plants – reducing research costs and allowing him to work with highly disease resistant varieties.

Compared to the Midwest, where corn and soybean still rule, turf is an increasingly important component of the agricultural landscape on the east coast, says Jung. He adds that UMass Amherst has provided a rich and welcoming spot to put down roots, and the New England is agreeable to wife, Eunjee Ahn and their two children. While he is looking forward to long summer days at the university research farm, however, Jung is content to leave his quest for healthier turf breeding in South Deerfield. He own small yard in Amherst, says Jung, is just a yard.