The western Canadian prairie has one thing in common with the well-groomed golf courses surrounding New Jersey’s Rutgers University: the need for stronger saline tolerant grass varieties… Golf courses are a different story. Rutgers, the prestigious Big Ten university, is working on turf grasses with greater saline tolerance. Not only will the school provide golfers with better turf grass, but it will also provide an environmentally friendly way to use a large volume of saline waste water… Breeding saline tolerant turf grass for golfers may seem frivolous, but it makes sense if golf courses could be irrigated with salt-laden waste water, said Rutgers plant breeder Stacy Bonos. Golf courses already using treated waste water for irrigation obtain it directly from municipal sewage treatment plants… “We decided to use perennial rye grass because it has pretty good salt tolerance to begin with, compared to something like Kentucky blue grass,” she said.
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