The University of Rhode Island was originally formed as a land-grant college, following the Morrill Act of 1862. In 1888 the college was established in Kingston, RI and in 1892 it was named the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. In 1909 the college was renamed the Rhode Island State College and in 1951 it became what we know today, the University of Rhode Island. As a land-grant college, the institution's mission was to train students in agiculture and the mechanical arts. As the college became part of a larger University, the mission of the institution has changed. But the land-grant college still exists at URI, now known as the College of the Enivronment and Life Sciences. And students are still trained in agricultural sciences, most notably, turfgrass science and horticulture. The Department of Plant Sciences is the center of this facet of URI's agricultural mission and the history of turfgrass sciences at URI dates back to the very beginning of the college in the 1890's.

Turn of the Century Turf Science

The Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station is often credited with having the longest continuously running turfgrass research program in the United States. The URI turf research plots were originally laid in Spring of 1890. Researchers seeded approximately 17,000 sq. ft. of velvet betngrass and Kentucky bluegrass, added some white clover, a little fertilizer and observed its progression over the next two summers. Not only were RIAES scientists interested in the compatibility of different grass species, in 1895 they undertook a liming study. By 1897 they had demonstrated that while redtop would thrive under low pH, many others grasses simply would not. Timothy was an important grass for livestock and Rhode Island scientists spend a good bit of effort looking at the effect of lime and phosphorous on increasing yields. Research conducted from 1905 to 1920 focused on a number of topics but included examining grasses and mixtures for their suitability as lawns, chemical weed control and fertilizer management. One turfgrass research project, to examine the longenvity of redtop, red fescue and colonial bentgrass under various fertilizer and liming regimes, lasted from 1905 until 1929!

Recent Advances

The URI turf program has had strong research projects in cultivar development, weed science, plant pathology, turf physiology and general turfgrass management for a long time. Of all the things we are good at, URI is probably most known for it's students and the grasses that have been developed here. Our most notable varieties, developed by or in conjunction with Dr. C.R. Skogley, include:

  Kingstown (velvet bentgrass)
  SR7200 (velvet bentgrass)
  Exeter (colonial bentgrass)
  Providence (creeping bentgrass)
  Jamestown (chewings fescue)
  Jamestown II (chewings fescue)
  Jamestown IV (chewings fescue)
  Jamestown 5 (chewings fescue)
  Georgetown (Kentucky bluegrass)
  Unique (Kentucy bluegrass)

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