" The Game, The Grass and The Science:
A History of the Sports Turf Research Institute"

Dr David Lawson - Sports Turf Research Institute

Wednesday 30 November 2005

Long gone are the days when top class football was played on the January mudbath that we still see on the occasional TV sports programme. Many of the natural surfaces now used for sports including football, rugby, golf, bowls and horse racecourses are designed to withstand severe weather conditions along with heavy wear and tear. This has been done through the breeding of specially bred grass cultivars, the development of free draining soils along with developments in fertilisers and pesticides. The Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI) in West Yorkshire has been at the heart of many of these developments since its inception in 1929. It is now the principal European organisation in the fields of turfgrass research and consultancy.