A huge part of soccer is, very literally, the grass it’s played on.
And in no small score for Rutgers University researchers, their Jersey-bred cool-season strain of turf grass is now in place at 10 World Cup host stadiums in North America, ready for the matches to begin this weekend.
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The strain of grass was created by plant biologist Stacy Bonos and tested by James Murphy, both professors at the Rutgers School for Environmental and Biological Sciences.
It was chosen for use in the World Cup by FIFA-appointed experts at Michigan State University and the University of Tennessee, who picked the turfgrass varieties for the stadiums under exacting standards.
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The turf must offer just the right amount of bounce and grip to players on 48 teams from different countries and climates who will know if the ground isn’t right.
It must stand up to the pummel of cleats.
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It cannot rip, even though it is reinforced by sod and a rootzone in a multi-layered, stacked setup that provides drainage and ventilation from underground.
From heat to downpours, it must weather the weather, presenting a consistent surface for every game. And in a newer stipulation adopted by FIFA this year, the grass must respond consistently across all the venues.
Its truest test is that it vanish into the magic of the game.
Bonos, the third director of Rutgers’ Turfgrass Breeding Program, has been refining, cross-breeding and cultivating disease and climate resistant turfgrasses for 25 years. The program is “world-renowned…we’ve been working at this for over 60 years,” she told NorthJersey.com.
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Her colleague, James Murphy, an extension specialist in Rutgers’ plant biology department, oversaw testing of the university’s turfgrasses for its durability for the World Cup using a machine with rubber paddles, about 12 to 15 inches long, 1 inch wide, and a half-inch thick, that beat at the grass like a players’ cleats do.
His role is to monitor the grass’s performance — meaning his eyes will be on the turf during those high-octane games.
“I can’t help but watch what the field does. That’s in my nature. That’s what I do for a living,’’ Murphy said in a university statement.
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Rutgers turfgrass, designed for cooler weather venues, is being used at stadiums in Philadelphia, Mexico City, Toronto, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Seattle.
Bonos said she “was disappointed” to learn that the Rutgers grass was not going to be used at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, which host seven World Cup matches starting Saturday, June 13 as well as the tournament final on July 19.
While New Jersey had originally contracted with a South Jersey company to grow and install the MetLife Stadium grass, due to winter weather conditions that grass was not available. Instead, the Hammonton company installed grass grown in North Carolina.
The Rutgers turfgrass being used at the World Cup venues is a mix of Blue Note, Bolt, and Legend Kentucky bluegrass varieties, and was put down at Gillette Stadium near Boston in late March and at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia in early May.
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Bonos was pleased to learn that Rutgers turfgrass met FIFA’s high bar, but its use goes beyond the tournament, she said, to international golf courses and at the Washington Monument in the nation’s capital.
The hardest challenge is to plan and breed for climate change — which means predicting weather systems and changes 10 to 15 years before the grass is ready to be harvested and be commercially produced, Bonos said.
The team arrives at this moment after years of refining on the field, a process that extends from March until November, when Bonos spends 70% of her day outdoors, sometimes starting as early as 6 a.m. to beat the summer heat.
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The grasses are cultivated in 51,000 plots on two farms in Freehold and North Brunswick. Another, smaller team of technicians works in a lab on campus to identify DNA markers, in a process similar to a paternity test for humans, to discern the “cultivars” with the highest quality genes.
Other than Bonos and Murphy’s researchers and clients, geese are among the greatest enthusiasts for turfgrass, sometimes stripping a “year’s worth of work in a single night,” Bonos said, when they begin walking into the fields after the migration season ends.
An entire Rutgers team is devoted to chasing away geese, using loudspeakers that play squawking sounds, as well as drones, and even a remote-controlled boat zipping across a pond at one of the farms, Bonos said.
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“Its a fun job,” said Bonos, speaking from the Rutgers-operated farm in Freehold. “I guess I’m pleased to see these grasses being used in meaningful situations, and that they’re being chosen because they are top-performing.
“We really want to maintain that excellence,” she said.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Rutgers-bred natural turfgrasses made grade for World Cup 2026
