Virtual Tour East Campus Turfgrass Research Center

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Author

08/06/2020 Added

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A virtual tour of the East Campus Turfgrass Research Center

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[00:00:03.118](cheerful music)
[00:00:23.230]Hey everyone.
[00:00:24.063]I'm gonna do a virtual tour of the facility using a drone
[00:00:28.710]so bear with me.
[00:00:30.390]I'm gonna try and fly this thing around
[00:00:31.870]and show you our turf plots.
[00:00:33.580]First off here, I'm gonna start with looking at
[00:00:37.170]just a broader review of our
[00:00:38.860]East Campus Turfgrass Research Center.
[00:00:41.300]You can see here on the map that we have roughly 108 plots
[00:00:46.920]irrigated plots that encompasses about 700 heads
[00:00:51.630]and almost eight miles of underground pipe.
[00:00:54.240]So it's a pretty big area of research where we have
[00:00:59.270]multiple areas that we use throughout the year
[00:01:02.250]for different studies from less than an eighth of an inch
[00:01:07.090]all the way up to three and a half four inch height of turf
[00:01:10.940]with various different studies throughout
[00:01:12.720]the whole entire area.
[00:01:15.200]So starting now, I'm gonna get flying this drone
[00:01:19.210]and I will take you kind of a tour of what we have.
[00:01:21.910]Right now I'm in the office.
[00:01:23.660]It's one of the two sheds we have a smaller area in here
[00:01:27.320]where our central computer runs our irrigation system.
[00:01:31.320]This site is all based off of solar and wind power.
[00:01:37.490]We have no electricity from the power lines that you can see
[00:01:41.420]run right through our plots, but there is no drop downs
[00:01:44.050]so we use solar and wind power to run our irrigation system
[00:01:48.890]and all the power needs that we have a couple of electric
[00:01:51.010]mowers that we use and basic day to day stuff
[00:01:54.600]that we use requiring electricity.
[00:01:58.070]So just going up now, we have our two buildings here,
[00:02:00.810]both about 14 by 35 feet and they hold
[00:02:06.530]a lot of our equipment and obviously our office
[00:02:10.170]and it's actually a perfect sized area to be able to do what
[00:02:13.450]we need out here and makes it easy for us to do research
[00:02:17.830]so close to the plots not having to have an area
[00:02:21.750]farther away to get the mowers here in and out.
[00:02:25.260]So getting up to altitude here this area on the left
[00:02:30.090]would have been the first established area,
[00:02:32.620]it's roughly one acre and you can see that
[00:02:36.560]we have some Yellow Nutsedge research plots in there.
[00:02:39.250]Bill's doing some
[00:02:42.400]Tall Fescue disease nitrogen growth models.
[00:02:47.340]And then we have our weed garden up to the top
[00:02:50.130]next to the sheds along with some of the turfgrass varieties
[00:02:56.610]that we have that we use for teaching
[00:03:00.300]and also just for people to come look
[00:03:02.310]and see what kind of different grasses are
[00:03:04.570]and their different growth characteristics.
[00:03:07.140]So then on the left was one acre then in 2015,
[00:03:10.780]we added another two acres.
[00:03:13.570]And then in 16, the area above on top of the road
[00:03:17.890]we actually added that another two acres
[00:03:20.430]and then last on this right side of the screen,
[00:03:24.860]we added another two and a half acres in 2017 and 18.
[00:03:29.650]So right now we're up to about a seven and a half acre
[00:03:32.830]research facility, which is a perfect size for what we need.
[00:03:37.540]And it also has a great opportunity
[00:03:40.120]for students that are on campus
[00:03:42.980]they can come out here and work on this.
[00:03:44.330]We can actually take classes out here
[00:03:45.840]and teach a lot easier.
[00:03:47.400]And we have such a variety of equipment out here
[00:03:50.010]that we can do pretty much anything.
[00:03:53.070]Weed plots, we finally have some good crabgrass plots.
[00:03:58.340]So you can see on the bottom left side of my screen here,
[00:04:01.600]sorry, it's moving a lot.
[00:04:02.790]But so we're finally up to basically full capacity
[00:04:07.530]of this facility with using
[00:04:11.340]a lot of the high maintenance areas,
[00:04:13.450]bent grass for a lot of golf research
[00:04:16.340]and a lot of the lawn height stuff we're using
[00:04:18.630]the different areas for various weed research
[00:04:21.510]and also growth models, looking at fertilizer applications
[00:04:26.090]and making those with growing degree day models
[00:04:30.400]also basically being able to have all these different types
[00:04:38.600]of grass and when it comes to doing research,
[00:04:41.740]you don't have to start from scratch.
[00:04:44.470]We already have a lot of established areas where we can go
[00:04:48.130]in and pretty much do most any study that we need to.
[00:04:53.440]Say right now, I'm just above the weed garden.
[00:04:56.160]And the two turf sheds, you can see our solar panels here,
[00:05:00.650]it's eight panels that are 800 Watts that actually charge
[00:05:06.880]a bank of batteries that are inside that shed.
[00:05:10.670]Here is basically the wind turbine.
[00:05:13.220]Obviously not very windy today, zero wind which is perfect
[00:05:16.660]for flying around hopefully I don't hit a power line.
[00:05:19.730]Crossing this here so far, so good.
[00:05:24.110]Here's our USDA putting green it's 12,000 square feet,
[00:05:29.500]we built that one in 2016.
[00:05:32.400]We brought in basically half of it is 100% pure sand
[00:05:37.570]with a four inch base of gravel underneath of it.
[00:05:40.920]The other half is an 80 20 mix of sand and peat.
[00:05:47.820]So we have a sand side and then basically the peat side.
[00:05:52.668]The peat is a lot easier to keep moisture in sand side
[00:05:56.480]is gonna require little more water.
[00:05:58.360]To the top left we have the rain off shelter
[00:06:02.030]that we built in the last year.
[00:06:03.810]Craig Ferguson has done a great job engineering that
[00:06:06.730]we now have it hooked up to wifi and it's got its own motor.
[00:06:10.630]So it's basically drives on and off
[00:06:13.160]with the click of a button and we'd like to have
[00:06:16.800]that hooked up to a rain sensor also
[00:06:19.020]so that it can go on with sense of rain
[00:06:22.330]and we can do drought research studies on that plot
[00:06:25.820]or if we need to, we can move it to a different plot.
[00:06:29.860]Here's more bank grass puttings greens below.
[00:06:32.420]There's some studies going on looking at
[00:06:36.990]various DMI fungicides on that bottom left
[00:06:40.700]and then the left here we have NTEP Kentucky Bluegrass
[00:06:45.000]and you can see in those it's amazing
[00:06:46.790]how much difference there is
[00:06:47.820]in Kentucky Bluegrass cultivars.
[00:06:49.980]Some of them have gotten hammered with (indistinct) spot,
[00:06:52.270]some are just a little bit more drought tolerant,
[00:06:55.470]and you can see that there's some really big differences
[00:06:58.400]within these plots.
[00:07:01.510]Just another overview and to the left here
[00:07:04.540]we have our NTEP Ryegrass same thing,
[00:07:09.670]a little bit hard to see a lot of the differences
[00:07:12.660]within plots but you can see
[00:07:14.600]that there are some definite differences.
[00:07:20.040]Just driving over the top here...
[00:07:23.340]Here flying over Michael Carlson's work
[00:07:27.530]where he's looking at Variable Rate
[00:07:35.263]using a sprayer, trying to figure out
[00:07:37.880]when those applications are needed and how to create
[00:07:40.250]the maps to do Variable Rate applications of Nitrogen
[00:07:44.280]corresponding with sensor based imaging.
[00:07:49.120]Here, we have a bare area that you can see
[00:07:51.870]is full of little trees and those are weeds.
[00:07:55.300]It's probably about two weeks of growth on those weeds
[00:07:57.420]and they're starting to get out of hand
[00:07:59.190]and we'll need to control them.
[00:08:01.210]Flying right down now on the Tall Fescue NTP
[00:08:04.910]and you can see there are some differences,
[00:08:07.150]the one that has an L shape around it, that is K31
[00:08:10.440]it has that lime green color but a lot of the
[00:08:13.240]Tall Fescues look kinda similar not as much difference
[00:08:17.570]as the ones you can see in the Kentucky Bluegrass.
[00:08:23.430]We did just have an inch 80 of rain
[00:08:27.060]and all of our plots are sloping to the Northeast.
[00:08:30.550]So you can see a little bit of water standing in these
[00:08:32.680]but usually it does not last more than half a day
[00:08:35.760]and the water dissipates.
[00:08:37.730]So just flying down now on the Clover patch that we have,
[00:08:42.400]it's about 10,000 square feet of Clover
[00:08:47.730]and you can see some studies in there that Eric
[00:08:54.340]is working on.
[00:08:57.160]And here's just another area
[00:08:59.850]that we're trying to get established
[00:09:01.190]for Crabgrass research.
[00:09:03.260]And that's where you can see the water standing.
[00:09:05.690]And there's some Buffalo grass selections,
[00:09:12.090]nicely sprayed out.
[00:09:16.270]Keenan's working on looking at
[00:09:17.500]some of the different varieties collected
[00:09:18.860]from all over the US.
[00:09:22.420]And here's just another look around at the entire area
[00:09:27.130]of the research facility.
[00:09:32.150]We have a lot of room for new studies.
[00:09:35.760]A lot of this stuff has only been established
[00:09:37.530]for three to five years.
[00:09:39.430]So it's nice to have something finally set in motion
[00:09:44.090]and it's nice to have this new facility
[00:09:46.180]where we can do very precise research
[00:09:51.280]whereas we can also have a very broad area
[00:09:55.670]of different studies going on at this research station
[00:09:58.860]and also a great opportunity to have students come down
[00:10:01.950]and conduct some of their research and learn
[00:10:04.340]as we are growing this facility
[00:10:07.760]and as we're growing as a program.
[00:10:11.930]I'm gonna attempt here just to give you a little tour
[00:10:14.250]of these little buildings that we have.
[00:10:17.090]They do store a lot of stuff and they are very convenient
[00:10:19.810]having them within 20 feet of the plots.
[00:10:28.080]It's not as easy as it looks,
[00:10:29.690]but I just thought I'd give some entertainment
[00:10:31.490]for those of you that are sitting here watching this video,
[00:10:34.520]seeing if I can crash this into a wall.
[00:10:39.030]A lot of our equipment needs for conducting
[00:10:43.930]just general maintenance and also a lot of our mowers
[00:10:46.620]that we use for clipping collection obviously you gotta have
[00:10:50.040]a nice set of tools that you can take care of the equipment.
[00:10:59.120]And it is a really nice shed to use,
[00:11:01.730]to stay out of the elements and also protect the equipment
[00:11:04.490]and keep it in good condition.
[00:11:08.010]So I think I'm gonna make it through here
[00:11:09.890]without hitting anything.
[00:11:11.570]And that's pretty much just a broad overview
[00:11:13.980]of our facility.
[00:11:14.813]I encourage any of you if you want to come down here any day
[00:11:18.510]of the week, me or Craig or whoever's out here
[00:11:24.040]would be willing to give you a tour firsthand
[00:11:27.510]so that you can see what's going on
[00:11:28.900]and what kind of research we're doing.
[00:11:30.650]But this is just a quick way of showing around
[00:11:34.680]the research facility, going into the office here,
[00:11:38.920]gonna end the tour
[00:11:39.920]and thanks for watching this and thanks for watching
[00:11:44.010]our virtual turf grass field day.
[00:11:46.510]I know it's not the same as normal.
[00:11:48.540]We really like seeing you guys out here
[00:11:50.410]and showing you what's going on and interacting with you.
[00:11:53.730]So this is one way we can just show what's going on
[00:11:55.880]but we'd still love your feedback.
[00:11:58.520]Anytime, give us a call and give me a call.
[00:12:01.540]If you wanna come out and look at plots,
[00:12:03.920]we're always open for people to come out and chat with,
[00:12:09.150]maybe entertain the idea of new research
[00:12:12.690]or what can be done to help the industry.
[00:12:18.750]So with that, I thank you all
[00:12:21.010]and hope that we can do it in person next year.
[00:12:26.960]Thank you and have a good day.
[00:12:31.383](cheerful music)

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Virtual Tour East Campus Turfgrass Research Center

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