TifGrand

The Summer Olympics may be in Japan right now, but Team USA was on home turf when they took the field for last week’s Opening Ceremony. The Japan National Olympic Stadium’s field was initially 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 while tolerating herbicides. Several days later, the field was resodded with TifGrand bermudagrass, a dense, very dark green grass. “It has a really thick root system that’s right at the top of the field for sports where your cleats are interacting within that top inch of soil or so,” said Brian Schwartz, a professor of crop and soil sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. From Georgia To Japan But how did Georgia-grown grass end up in Tokyo at the Olympic Stadium? “People won’t just change out the Super Bowl stadium field just because you tell them it’s a really good grass,” commented Schwartz. “As a grass performs well over many years, then they start switching things out. And I think that’s how TifGrand really made its way into the Olympics.” TifGrand is also incredibly shade tolerant, which is key for a stadium, like Japan’s National Stadium, that has high walls of seating and roofing that could hinder grass growth. “It’s easy to claim ‘shade tolerance’ verbally, but it’s not easy to verify such traits ...