Cover Story
Our Story —
50 Years of Turfgrass Management at Mississippi State
By Dr. Jay McCurdy, Ph.D., Assistant Extension Professor, with Wayne Philley, Senior Research Associate, and Barry Stewart, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Mississippi State University
S
ince my arrival at Mississippi State more than a year ago, I’ve shared laughs and memories with hundreds of turf alumni, faculty and supporters. Folks like Harold Walker, Charles Winstead, Jeff Krans, Mike Goatley, Euel Coats, Charlie Scoggins, Wayne Philley and so many more are living testaments to the program and its history. Among the many students — past and present — that I spoke with, each had their own honor and reverence for the teachers and mentors who have built our program. This article is by no means a comprehensive history of the program, merely the beginning to a celebration of 50-plus years of MSU turf.
The early years
The MSU catalog first listed a Turfgrass Management curriculum in 1965. However, initial turf research efforts owe much credit to forage and pasture research being conducted to support 10 • Mississippi Turfgrass • Summer 2015
Mississippi dairy and beef production. Dr. H.W. Bennet (circa 1945), who developed forage-type dallisgrass, and Dr. Byron Burson, a cytogeneticist, are commonly mentioned in many of our interviews with past students and faculty. Early department heads for the Agronomy program clearly shepherded research pertaining to turf. Dr. Clarence Dorman, for whom Dorman Hall is named, and Dr. C. Dale Hoover are just two of the names often mentioned. The earliest specific turf research was conducted under the direction of Drs. Louis N. Wise and Corwin M. Johnson. Dr. Wise was employed in March 1950 to head the new Pasture Management research and teaching program. His simultaneous interest in turfgrass is appropriately credited with founding MSU’s earliest turfgrass research program. Dr. Johnson, hired in March 1956, also contributed to the program through his research
on “wintergrass” overseeding varieties for putting greens. In 1958, the first turfgrass field plots were initiated on the MSU campus, probably by Ben Fleming, a master’s student who later went to Penn State for a Ph.D. That same year, a Golfdom article expressed the following: “Good wishes for a successful turf program to Dr. Louis N. Wise at the Mississippi State College at Starkville. Dr. Wise runs the first successful and only seed training school of its kind in the world. We saw him again at Beltsville and at Gainesville, Fla., where he was picking up information so as to develop a comprehensive program in turf research for Mississippi.” Dr. Wise, along with Dr. W.L. Giles (MSU’s eventual 13th president), was an early leader in the Seed Technology program, but his 1961 publication, The Lawn Book, was evidence of his keen interest in turfgrass. By 1960, Dr. Wise had moved into University