On This Farm in Freehold, the Grass Is Always Greener by Design
Honors College students visit the Rutgers Plant Science Research and Extension Farm to learn about the university’s turfgrass-breeding program
Standing in a plot of soil dotted with nearly equally spaced tufts of green and not-so-green grass, Stacy Bonos spelled out the scope of Rutgers University’s turfgrass-breeding program for a dozen Honors College students.
“Rutgers grass is everywhere,” said Bonos, director of the program and a professor with the Department of Plant Biology.
She added the program “is a passion” of hers and other researchers at the Rutgers Plant Science Research and Extension Farm, often called the Adelphia Farm, in Freehold, N.J.
Earlier that morning on this warm, partly cloudy Friday in September, the 12 students descended from a white shuttle that had taken them from Rutgers University-New Brunswick to Adelphia Farm.
Acquired in 1961, the 200-plus acres of land originally was used for field-crop research with an emphasis on weed and soil science. Now the research specialty is turfgrass breeding, a program that generates $3 million to $5 million dollars a year for the state university.
More than 25 seed companies license Rutgers turfgrass varieties and promote them for use throughout the world. The companies pay royalties to Rutgers, which are put back into the research farm and breeding program. (The farm is home to the largest single collection of cool-season turfgrasses in the world.)
That day, the farm also served as a field-trip destination for the visiting students – and class, namely an interdisciplinary honors seminar called “Beyond Campus: Research at Rutgers Off-Campus Stations,” was in session.
Bonos provided a tour of the farm along with some history and a closer examination of the research and grass-breeding efforts taking place. Peter Oudemans, a professor of plant biology and pathology with the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and Dave Bushek, a professor of marine and coastal sciences at the university, aided Bonos and encouraged the students to ask questions.
Early on, Bonos told the students how Rutgers turf played a starring role in soccer fields during the U.S.-hosted 2026 FIFA World Cup over the summer, among other places.
“They're at the White House,” Bonos said. “They're at Yankee Stadium. They're at Red Bull Stadium. They're in my backyard. They're in your backyard.”
Rutgers grass is everywhere.
Stacy Bonos
Director of the Rutgers turfgrass-breeding program
One of the latest turfgrass research projects at the farm is understanding how to incorporate high throughput phenotyping – a rapid, precise and scalable means of measuring plant performance using multispectral imaging collected through weekly drone flights of the fields. The effort involves incorporating artificial intelligence tools with the images collected to enhance grass breeding and selection. Roadblocks to this project include data storage and data analysis.
The farm features more than 51,000 individual evaluation plots that are visually appraised by breeders each month, said Bonos, explaining that the uniqueness of the location allows researchers to gather “large data sets to train the AI models that we are trying to implement.”
Bonos added, there is no other place “in the world that has this many evaluation plots in one location. We have the unique ability to test our models with literally millions of data points.”
“You wouldn't know that this is happening at Rutgers,” said Foysal Sorwar, a sophomore majoring in biological sciences who was born in Bangladesh but grew up in Elizabeth, N.J. “I hardly see South Jersey or farming for that matter. On this trip I can literally get my hands dirty and dig deep into the turf industry.”
The 19-year-old added “it was super cool to find out 10 out of the 16 World Cup stadiums featured Rutgers grasses.”
Using golf carts to traverse the farm, Bonos led the class to the first stop: A rectangular plot of purposely dry soil featuring dozens of patches of grass. Breeders are working on varieties of drought-resistant grass here.
You wouldn't know that this is happening at Rutgers.
Foysal Sorwar
Honors College sophomore majoring in biological sciences
Rails have been installed on opposite sides of the plot, and a rounded greenhouse covering sits on the rails. When the contraption’s sensors detect rain, the motorized rail system draws the greenhouse covering over the rectangle of dirt to keep it as dry as possible. When the sensors no longer detect precipitation, the covering retracts.
The next stop featured sections of grass covered by pecan trees, where breeders are developing shade-resistant turfgrass. Rutgers researchers finetune varieties of grass for particular qualities, including color (dark green is a preference), rate of growth (for less mowing) and resistance to disease, as Bonos showed the class on its third stop: a plot of tall fescue grass, much of it plagued with gray leaf spot, a fungal turf disease.
“The end product is how it looks in your lawn,” Bonos said.
A little while later, Oudemans goaded the quiet, note-scrawling students into a conversation about how scientists modify plants by posing a not-so-silly question.
“How do you grow a seedless watermelon?” Oudemans asked. (The answer? By crossing a diploid plant with a tetraploid plant, creating a sterile hybrid, or triploid.)
Goals at the farm include developing turfgrasses that resists climate change – and next-generation varieties for “the next World Cup,” she noted.
Prisha Shah, a cell biology and neuroscience major, said she is accustomed to “very hard-core science classes,” so a course featuring field trips on Fridays sounded refreshing.
“I wanted a different class where I could explore something outside of the basic core science classes,” said Shah, a junior from Morris County who operated one of the golf carts around the farm. (“I felt the urge to drive it.”)
Shah, 20, who plans to attend medical school, said the seminar happens to fulfill one of her Honors College requirements, too.
“I was like, ‘Perfect, it fulfills my Honors College requirement and I will get to learn something new while also having fun,” said Shah, of Boonton, N.J.
I wanted a different class where I could explore something outside of the basic core science classes.
Prisha Shah
Honors College junior studying cell biology and neuroscience
Bonos said she hoped the students gained an appreciation for what it takes to develop grass varieties.
“Also, I hope they realize that you can find a passion for a career and find a job that you actually really love to do,” she said. “I would encourage all of them, while they're in their studies and doing all of their classes, to think about something that they're really passionate about because you can find it and make a career out of it.”
Bushek said getting students out of the classroom and into the field to experience science up close is meaningful.
“Students learn in all kinds of different ways,” said Bushek, who also is the director of the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory. “A lot of times what they learn in the books, they can't quite connect to what is an actual practical application of what they're learning. And this helps them make those connections.”
Rutgers Turfgrass Is Rooted in Research
Honor College students visited the Rutgers Plant Science Research and Extension Farm, often called the Adelphia Farm, in Freehold, N.J., to learn about the university's turfgrass-breeding program.
