By: Brett Michaels
Platinum TE is designed to provide unprecedented aesthetics. It features a darker green color than other paspalum cultivars, resulting in superior striping capability. Plus, Platinum TE plays as great as it looks. Its fine leaf blade and tight internode spacing create a very compact canopy surface that provides exceptional ball set up and puttability. Even in low light intensity conditions, it has exhibited superior growth performance and sustainability, making it ideal for areas with persistent cloudy or rainy climatic patterns and reduced light quality.
In addition to its exceptional appearance and playability, Platinum TE offers important maintenance benefits. With proper management, this turfgrass exhibits high salt tolerance and excellent foliar disease resistance. Platinum TE establishes rapidly from sprigs and aggressively grows in from surface stolons. In response to day length/photoperiod changes or environmental stress exposure, this turfgrass shows minimal seed head exertion. A versatile turfgrass, Platinum TE tolerates a wide range of mowing heights (0.070 to 1.500 inches), making it a perfect choice for any area on a golf course or sports turfgrass venue.
“By selecting Platinum TE, golf courses are now able to install wall-to-wall turfgrass that’s a genetically improved step above all other paspalum cultivars,” said Turf Ecosystems Vice President Ron R. Duncan, PhD. “Like other turfgrass cultivars that we develop at Turf Ecosystems, Platinum TE is designed to provide our customers a new level of performance and maintenance benefits.”
Turf Ecosytems offers a user-friendly Platinum TE Nursery Program guided by environmentally sustainable standards to ensure genetic purity and unparalleled grassing experiences for the customer. Direct consultation with Dr. Duncan is available on all aspects of the Platinum TE experience including irrigation water challenges and site-specific management programs.
Phillip Jennings Turf Farms has signed on as the first licensee grower of Platinum TE and the exclusive distributor for international orders. Located in
Through research and science, Turf Ecosystems develops and manages new turfgrass cultivars and maintenance products that are better-suited to both performance expectations and environmental limitations. Under direction of its vice president, Ron R. Duncan, PhD, the Florida-based company offers a full range of turfgrass and irrigation water management services, including scientific research; new cultivar development; site assessment; treatment and long-term environmental sustainability strategies for recreational turfgrass; management of seashore paspalum installations; and general consulting for turfgrass and water issues.
Turf Ecosystem’s focus on global environmental stewardship has led to the effective ecosystem management of alternative irrigation sources for recreational turfgrass, including recycled or reclaimed water, stormwater, brackish water and blended water containing variable salinity levels. A former professor of Crop and Soil Sciences at the
