UConn Researcher Develops Grass That Won't Mow You Down

STORRS, CT — A low-maintenance lawn? A University of Connecticut professor has created just that with an added benefit.

Yi Li, a professor of horticultural plant biology in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources at UConn, has created "novel lawn grasses" that school officials said offer several benefits over traditional lawn grasses, including a "significant reduction in effort required for lawn care."

Typically, lawn grasses demand extensive maintenance, such as mowing, irrigation, and fertilization. UConn officials said In the United States, the 40 million acres of land covered by lawn or turf grasses necessitate 800 million gallons of gas to power lawn mowers and other landscaping equipment. The lawns require 3 million tons of fertilizer annually, along with "significant irrigation needs," UConn officials said.

Some studies indicate that the greenhouse gas emissions linked to lawn care surpass the amount of CO2 absorbed by lawn grasses., officials said.

Li’s new grass varieties reduce the amount of mowing required to only three or four times per year in Connecticut, as opposed to more than 20 times a year, which will drastically reduce gasoline use as well as manpower to mow lawn grasses, according to UConn officials.

The new lawn grasses need minimal or no fertilizer, this reducing potential nitrogen and phosphorous pollution, UConn officials said.

The Li Lab is currently developing drought-resistant and other beneficial traits for lawn grasses via "traditional breeding and genome editing technologies."

"For example, if we know the gene responsible for controlling the grasses’ tolerance to drought, we could use genome editing to create the desirable drought tolerant genotype” Li said. "If we don’t know which gene is responsible for this trait, we breed the plants traditionally. Genome editing can be much more efficient, much faster, However, that requires our knowledge of the gene function or the associated phenotype. So, we're using both approaches."

Li’s lawn grasses, "allow people to continue to have and enjoy traditional lawns while greatly reducing the harm they cause to the environment and making maintenance more affordable," UConn officials said.

See more at the UConn Today site.