Member Spotlight on Dr. Doug Karcher

Q: What is your background and how did you become a turfgrass professor?

A: I was probably on summer break sometime between my third and fourth grade year and my parents laid down the law that “hey, you’re just not going to lay around all summer – you need to start working, do something.” It was either helping the local farmers bale hay or straw OR start a lawn mowing business in our neighborhood, so I chose the latter.

I became an employee of the turf management industry as an 11-year-old and I’ve been interested in turfgrass maintenance ever since. Upon high school graduation, I enrolled at Ohio State, majoring in Agronomy and turfgrass management, thinking that I’d be working on the golf course soon and make a career of that, and it wasn’t until I was about a month away from graduation and still hadn’t nailed down a job yet. I was a little bit down and talked with my advisor at Ohio State at the time, who was Carl Dannaberger, who is still there. He asked if I’d ever considered graduate school. I didn’t even know what graduate school was. He mentioned that there was an opportunity up at Michigan State and that I should really go and visit with Dr. Paul Rieke, that he had an assistantship available. I decided to go to graduate school and work on a Master’s degree, fell in love with the science and the research side of the industry and just stayed up there for my Ph.D. and was fortunate that upon graduation at Michigan State in 1999, there was a job opening at the University of Arkansas. So I applied and got the offer and started working here at the University of Arkansas in the spring of 2000 and have loved it since.

Pictured above: Dr. Karcher (far right) leads an education session at University of Arkansas’ 2019 Field Day.

Q: What is the most important part of the partnership between U of A and ATA?

A: For me personally, it allows me to stay plugged in with all components of our turf industry — interacting with the ATA Board several times a year, and the Board has representation from folks in golf and in sod production, in commercial sales, in lawn and landscape industry. It’s great for me to stay in touch with those folks and learn what their most pressing issues are, and it challenges me to try to provide content at the annual ATA conference that will address some of those issues. It’s very helpful for me, and through those interactions, I’m able to pass that information along to our students at the U of A, just to help us stay current and relevant in addressing the needs of the industry and make sure that we’re graduating students that are ready to succeed in the industry.

Q: What is the best part of your job?

A: There are so many parts of my job that I really love. I love the folks I work with, I love interacting with the industry. But the first thing that popped into my mind is just being in a campus environment. I love working at the university, so just to be working in that environment I find to be extremely stimulating, makes it fun to come to work every day.

Q: What are some challenges of your job?

A: The biggest challenge of doing turf research is just being subjected to Mother Nature. Most of our trials are out in the field and subjected to Mother Nature. We can have a trial that we put lots and lots of hours that we’re getting it set up and applying treatments and maybe have it just completely washed out to the point where we get no meaningful data for a season.

Q: What would your advice be for people entering the turfgrass industry now?

A: Don’t be afraid of a little hard work, be patient, build your network, treat people with respect, follow through. Do what you say you’re going to do, show up to work on time and you will be successful, even if you’re not a fourpoint student. If you pass your classes and are a hard worker and you have a personality that you work well with others, you will be successful in this industry, no doubt.

Thank you Dr. Karcher for your partnership with ATA and your commitment to growing the turf industry in Arkansas.

For our full interview with Dr. Karcher, visit theturfzone.com/podcasts