Field Day will take place from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sept. 15, at the university's Turfgrass Research Facility, 1060 Martin Luther King Blvd., Riverside, Calif.
The registration fee is $70 ($90 after Sept. 9). This registration fee is waived for reporters interested in covering the annual event.
"Grasses are the most widespread plants on earth," said Thomas O. Baldwin, the dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, who will attend Field Day. "The health and maintenance of grass are very important, not only to homeowners but also to golf course managers and other landscape professionals. UC Riverside is the only university in California conducting turfgrass research. It's part of our land-grant mission to communicate the results of that research to the public through this field day."
Industry professionals, advisors and specialists will be available at the event to answer the public's questions on issues related to the care and maintenance of turf and landscape plants.
"Turfgrass directly and significantly impacts California's economy," said James Baird, a turfgrass research specialist in UC Riverside's Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, who is leading the event. "Attendees will find that Field Day is an excellent opportunity to learn in just half a day about the breadth of turfgrass research activities."
Field Day attendees include professional turfgrass managers and their supervisors from golf courses, athletic fields, parks, and lawn care companies.
The event includes a research field tour for participants to get familiar with research results and observations of ongoing, or recently completed, turfgrass research projects at UC Riverside. Field Day attendees will learn about fungicides, drought tolerance among turfgrass varieties, irrigation salinity management, as well as the use of recycled water for turf and landscape plants.
Researchers from around California will discuss measuring water use efficiency and carbon sequestering abilities of all major warm- and cool-season turfgrasses grown in the state. They also will discuss the effectiveness of groundcovers as a means of conserving water in the landscape, as well as the best ways to manage turfgrass diseases, pests and weeds.
To see the full agenda of Field Day, visit http://ucanr.org/sites/turfgrassfieldday/Agenda/.
Registration information can be found at http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=6937.
Walk-ins are welcome on Sept. 15; registration can be done on site.
Parking will be available in Parking Lot 30, from where the Turfgrass Research Facility in Agricultural Operations is a short walk.
The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UC Riverside's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Graduate Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.