New 'Matchless' grass variety yields high seed count without need for field burning

"Matchless," developed from another bluegrass variety called "Kenblue," offers seed growers higher yields without the harmful impacts of burning. It also provides consumers with the option of a more environmentally friendly grass.

For several decades in the 1900s, Kentucky bluegrass growers burned fields to remove stubble after harvest, reduce thatch buildup, prevent disease, and for a number of other benefits. In 1998, Washington state banned the practice due to air quality and safety concerns. Washington produces around 80% of the world's Kentucky bluegrass seed.

"The ban had a huge impact on an important crop," said Michael Neff, WSU professor and director of WSU's turfgrass research program. "The ban didn't kill the dryland bluegrass seed production industry, but it limited the varieties that could be grown and increased costs for those that could. Matchless adds yield and profit for growers."

Burning was once widespread in the Pacific Northwest, but now is banned in Washington and Oregon and heavily regulated in Idaho, allowed only under very specific circumstances. Eliminating the practice has environmental benefits that can be marketed to end-users as well.

"Many people care a lot about the environmental impact of the products they use," said Neff, a professor in WSU's Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. "Matchless can be marketed as a 'cleaner' variety. It's also cheaper than burning."

Matchless was bred by Neff's predecessor, former WSU Professor Bill Johnston. Johnston named the variety as a double play on words: No matches are needed to start fires and there's no match for the yield.

Neff and his lab took the selection Johnston spent years producing and did the required additional years of work to get the plant protected as a new variety. Producing new varieties of Kentucky bluegrass isn't as simple as traditional plant breeding, where people take pollen from one plant, apply it to the flowers of another, and look at the varying results in future generations.

Due to bluegrass reproduction complications, only a few plants in a large sample of offspring may be different; most are clones. Spotting the differences takes skill and patience.

"As a plant breeder, it's nice to have a clone of the mom for production because it makes the variety very uniform," said Jonathan Schnore, a PhD student in Neff's lab. "But when developing new material, you want genetic recombination, so the offspring have different traits. As a breeder, you're looking at a field of clones for that one plant that looks different: a needle in a haystack of clones."

Neff said the challenge is worth the effort. Kentucky bluegrass is very popular for sports fields, golf courses, home lawns, and a variety of other uses.

"It provides a gorgeous, uniform color and feels really great to walk or lie down on," Neff said. "And it's very resilient to damage, repairing itself quickly."

Consumers won't notice Matchless when buying seed or sod because it looks and performs like other Kentucky bluegrass varieties. Varieties and species are often blended in seed bags purchased at home improvement stores, so consumers mostly don't see the individual grasses in the bags.

Matchless is owned by WSU and protected in the United States with a Plant Variety Protection Certificate, issued by the USDA.