Parliament House turf trials
Australia’s Parliament House is currently evaluating a number of TurfBreed’s leading varieties as potential replacements for the existing Couch and Tall Fescue grasses that are laid.
TurfRND’s Dr Andrew Fletcher recently met with Paul Janssens (Assistant Director, Landscape Services, for Australia’s Parliament House (APH)) and visited the trial sites to see how they were progressing.
While the APH team were impressed with how well TurfBreed’s varieties had established and thrived over their first summer, the real test would be how they tolerate the cold Canberra winters.
“While Parliament House has a recognisable large external lawn, there also are a number of smaller internal courtyards that receive a lot of shade, are difficult to mow (due to the complicated nature of maintaining high security grounds) and are often busy public places,” Dr Fletcher commented.
“However, we’re confident that we can demonstrate that high-valued turf with good shade tolerance and low maintenance requirements would be ideal to help the APH groundsmen keep the lawns looking fantastic year-round”.
Supporting the next generation of turfies
TurfRND’s senior research scientist Dr Andrew Fletcher continues to expand TurfBreed’s reach and offer support to the next generation of “turfies”.
At the 2021 Annual Australian Sports Turf Management Conference on the Gold Coast, Dr Fletcher met several head educators from TAFE turf programs around Australia. He also heard a recurring message, that restrictive funding and limited support made establishing new turf programs for students to work on, near impossible.
Seeing the opportunity to work with up-and-coming industry professionals, Dr Fletcher reached-out to several TAFE courses. The aim being to offer TurfRND’s program support that gave their students access to TurfBreed’s suite of turfgrasses, as well as our network of growers, research projects, and any other resources that were available.
Trial Sites that have been installed at Further Education Centres
- Melbourne Polytechnic (VIC)
- Bendigo TAFE (VIC)
- Canberra Institute of Technology (ACT)
- Kurri Kurri TAFE (NSW)
Newly installed plots of TurfBreed varieties at the Canberra Institute of Technology