The Adoption of Low-Input Turfgrasses in the Midwestern US: The Case of Fine Fescues and Tall Fescue
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Overall this manuscript has very few grammatical errors. I do think the introduction is a bit long, and unnecessary. The length of the introduction and literature review doesn't add to the manuscript and should be shortened to focus solely on turfgrass and sod production as that is what you are trying to report on. There are many citations and examples given that don't really relate to turfgrass production and are unnecessary in both the introduction and literature cited. I do find many of the findings interesting in the results section, but I think you draw questionable results from those findings. While I think the first two paragraphs can be eliminated in the literature review, you only cite new cultivars in what I would consider secondary crops. If you are going to cite adoption of new cultivars why not cite corn, canola, and soybeans? These crops have a much greater financial impact? Also you talk about embracing new cultivars, but throughout the paper you are comparing to Kentucky bluegrass so you are really wanting people to embrace new species correct?
Paragraph three of the literature review states that larger businesses and paragraph four, older businesses will adapt or introduce newer technology more often is supported by citations, but this doesn't take into account that sod production farms are passed down in family's multiple generations (much like farmland in general) so I don't feel like this is a valid argument for sod farms.
You also don't mention anything about sod and soil considerations when buying sod. A professional turfgrass manager (golf or sports field) will buy a sod that best matches their soil profile, they will not put a muck sod over a sandy soil. That issue would cause a sod to fail, whereas a landscaper will just sod a yard because the topsoil is removed during home construction and it will not matter.
Table 1: Isn't this table based on the survey of Midwest sod buyers not US? This needs to be clarified as the text says it was a Midwest survey.
What was the respondent rate for each state? That would be interesting to know.
Also in Table 1: Quantity of fine fescues and tall fescues: what is this quantity? Acres? Ft? Does this account for a tall fescue/KBG mix sod?
Bermudagrass is not a recommended grass for much of the Midwest, there should be a footnote stating that it would have a low response rate just due to not being recommended for 3/4 of the survey area.
In results:
Only 47% of sod buyers bought tall fescue, but more importantly, how many buyers actually had access to tall fescue sod grown in their state? When I looked on the Turfgrass Producers Website I couldn't find low-input sod growers in N.D., S.D., IA, or WI listed. I only saw growers with KBG in the mix.
Line 368: You comment that buyers are more resistant to buying low-input grasses due to inherent risk of innovating and adding more complexity - and while this might be an issue, cold tolerance of tall fescue is a concern for much of the Midwest and fine fescue would make a very poor athletic field playing surface, and does not do as well in full sun and high humidity with limited water. This statement you make is oversimplified of the situation and resistance to buying these grasses and should be removed or edited. While the next paragraph somewhat explains the issues with landscapers buying more low-input grasses, you still don't mention that golf and sports have different uses for the grass. This needs to also be stated here.
Table 2 title should again state that this is based on data from the Midwest.
In this section have not taken into account the issues I bring up earlier- a professional turfgrass manager (golf or sports) will not buy a low-input if it can't function for their need. If the golf course has KBG and they needed to resod a fairway they will not change one fairway as that doesn't make sense. Similarly, if a football field needed to be re-soded they would not sod a fine fescue field. You should look the number of respondents, if you had a higher number of golf or sports then it was more of a functional choice than resistance to low-input.
In your conclusion you state that often Kentucky bluegrass is being bought because they are familiar with it, but you are neglecting that you surveyed golf course and athletic field managers both which would want something that is very traffic tolerant or recovers quickly (which a low-input grass can't do).
I do think you should reconsider the premise of the survey and that the choice to use KBG over low-input grasses could be related to the functionality of the grass. There is no doubt landscapers could use low-input grasses more often in yards and parks, and I think that should be mentioned. We certainly don't want to make a golf course or athletic field unplayable because they are trying to use a low-input grass for a putting green or football field. It is not that these managers are resisting change, they have a different use. I would revise the entire manuscript for this focus.
Author Response
Answers to Reviewer 1
Overall this manuscript has very few grammatical errors. I do think the introduction is a bit long, and unnecessary.The length of the introduction and literature review doesn't add to the manuscript and should be shortened to focus solely on turfgrass and sod production as that is what you are trying to report on. There are many citations and examples given that don't really relate to turfgrass production and are unnecessary in both the introduction and literature cited.
Thank you for the comment, we have shortened the introduction and removed many citations. However, there is no previous literature on adoption of turfgrasses, therefore we were left to pick from literature of other types of agribusinesses to explain the adoption of low-input turfgrasses. While it may seem unnecessary literature, we consider it is useful to frame our paper.
I do find many of the findings interesting in the results section, but I think you draw questionable results from those findings. While I think the first two paragraphs can be eliminated in the literature review, you only cite new cultivars in what I would consider secondary crops. If you are going to cite adoption of new cultivars why not cite corn, canola, and soybeans? These crops have a much greater financial impact?
We have removed the citations of secondary crops following the reviewer’s suggestion.
Also you talk about embracing new cultivars, but throughout the paper you are comparing to Kentucky bluegrass so you are really wanting people to embrace new species correct?
We changed the literature to change of species following reviewer’s suggestion.
Paragraph three of the literature review states that larger businesses and paragraph four, older businesses will adapt or introduce newer technology more often is supported by citations, but this doesn't take into account that sod production farms are passed down in family's multiple generations (much like farmland in general) so I don't feel like this is a valid argument for sod farms.
We have rewritten the paragraphs suggested and have used the fact that sod farms are passed down in multiple generations of families to support the need for our research and assessing the impact of farm size on adopting new species of turfgrass in the sod industry.
You also don't mention anything about sod and soil considerations when buying sod. A professional turfgrass manager (golf or sports field) will buy a sod that best matches their soil profile, they will not put a muck sod over a sandy soil. That issue would cause a sod to fail, whereas a landscaper will just sod a yard because the topsoil is removed during home construction, and it will not matter.
Thank you for the comment. We considered that including literature on soil types will not contribute to the study and would rather make the literature too broad. To support our rationale, we found that landscapers are the ones more likely to buy low-input sod (lines 429-432). We did use the knowledge of soil as necessary information to disseminate and promote the use of low-input turfgrasses that better adapt to the environment (lines
Table 1: Isn't this table based on the survey of Midwest sod buyers not US? This needs to be clarified as the text says it was a Midwest survey.
Thank you for the comment, we followed reviewer’s suggestion.
What was the respondent rate for each state? That would be interesting to know.
Thank you for the observation. Some data list managers sent the survey to an unknown number of members. We tried obtaining this number, but we were not provided with a specific number of members for each state since some associations have voluntary participation and others don’t have many members actively participating (their estimated engagement is low for non-active members).
Also in Table 1: Quantity of fine fescues and tall fescues: what is this quantity? Acres? Ft? Does this account for a tall fescue/KBG mix sod?
Thank you for the observation, the quantity was in ft2, which we added to the document following reviewer’s suggestion.
Bermudagrass is not a recommended grass for much of the Midwest, there should be a footnote stating that it would have a low response rate just due to not being recommended for 3/4 of the survey area.
Thank you for the comment, we followed reviewer’s suggestion.
In results:
Only 47% of sod buyers bought tall fescue, but more importantly, how many buyers actually had access to tall fescue sod grown in their state? When I looked on the Turfgrass Producers Website I couldn't find low-input sod growers in N.D., S.D., IA, or WI listed. I only saw growers with KBG in the mix.
Thank you for the comment, we do not have the number of buyers who had access to tall fescue sod in their state. However, 65% of tall fescue growers indicated having purchased tall fescue because their supplier had it available.
Line 368: You comment that buyers are more resistant to buying low-input grasses due to inherent risk of innovating and adding more complexity - and while this might be an issue, cold tolerance of tall fescue is a concern for much of the Midwest and fine fescue would make a very poor athletic field playing surface, and does not do as well in full sun and high humidity with limited water. This statement you make is oversimplified of the situation and resistance to buying these grasses and should be removed or edited.
Thank you for the comment, we edited this part following the reviewer’s suggestion.
While the next paragraph somewhat explains the issues with landscapers buying more low-input grasses, you still don't mention that golf and sports have different uses for the grass. This needs to also be stated here.
Thank you for the comment, we added this detail to the results.
Table 2 title should again state that this is based on data from the Midwest.
Thank you for the comment. We followed reviewer’s suggestion.
In this section have not taken into account the issues I bring up earlier- a professional turfgrass manager (golf or sports) will not buy a low-input if it can't function for their need. If the golf course has KBG and they needed to resod a fairway they will not change one fairway as that doesn't make sense. Similarly, if a football field needed to be re-soded they would not sod a fine fescue field. You should look the number of respondents, if you had a higher number of golf or sports then it was more of a functional choice than resistance to low-input.
Thank you for the comment. In our survey, 40% of participants are golf courses and athletic facilities and 60% are landscapers.
In your conclusion you state that often Kentucky bluegrass is being bought because they are familiar with it, but you are neglecting that you surveyed golf course and athletic field managers both which would want something that is very traffic tolerant or recovers quickly (which a low-input grass can't do).
Thank you for the comment, we followed the reviewer’s suggestion.
I do think you should reconsider the premise of the survey and that the choice to use KBG over low-input grasses could be related to the functionality of the grass. There is no doubt landscapers could use low-input grasses more often in yards and parks, and I think that should be mentioned. We certainly don't want to make a golf course or athletic field unplayable because they are trying to use a low-input grass for a putting green or football field. It is not that these managers are resisting change, they have a different use. I would revise the entire manuscript for this focus.
Thank you for the comment, we added some context related to the functionality of the grasses. Tall fescue is commonly used in transition zone athletic fields that lack irrigation. It is often used in combination with Kentucky bluegrass on these fields. Also, a golf course might not only buy sod for a fairway. Lots of golf acreage is higher cut rough, so we think this functional choice may be hard to assume.
Reviewer 2 Report
A single suggestion: as this is a specific survey carried out in a given year (2020), and cannot be extrapolated to other conditions, this should be clear in the title and abstract.
Author Response
Answers to Reviewer 2
A single suggestion: as this is a specific survey carried out in a given year (2020), and cannot be extrapolated to other conditions, this should be clear in the title and abstract.
Thank you for the comment, we specified the date of the survey in the abstract following reviewer’s suggestion. And also, we added this information as one of the limitations of the study.
Reviewer 3 Report
The article deals with interesting and important issues, both from the environmental and economic point of view. Applies to fine fescues (Festuca spp.) and tall fescue (Schedonorus arundinaceus) - low-input turfgrass species that perform well under less water, pesticides, and fertilizers. The manuscript is well prepared, but the following points should be noted:
1) In the abstract and in the Summary and Conclusions section, there should be no bibliographic footnotes, references to literature should be made in the other sections.
2) I wonder if the purpose of the article was formulated correctly. It was defined as: "Our study aimed to build off of previous consumer literature in this area to understand the preferences of sod buyers for low-input turfgrasses". After all, the authors carried out surveys, built a model, etc. It is worth verifying it.
3) I have doubts about the section "Summary ans conclusions". This part is largely a discussion. You may want to consider dividing this chapter into "Discussion" and "Conclusions". Conclusions should be formulated independently, without references to the bibliography.
Author Response
Answer to Reviewer 3
The article deals with interesting and important issues, both from the environmental and economic point of view. Applies to fine fescues (Festuca spp.) and tall fescue (Schedonorus arundinaceus) - low-input turfgrass species that perform well under less water, pesticides, and fertilizers. The manuscript is well prepared, but the following points should be noted:
1) In the abstract and in the Summary and Conclusions section, there should be no bibliographic footnotes, references to literature should be made in the other sections.
Thank you for the comment, we edited the abstract following reviewer’s suggestion. We changed the “Summary and Conclusions” section to “Discussions”.
2) I wonder if the purpose of the article was formulated correctly. It was defined as: "Our study aimed to build off of previous consumer literature in this area to understand the preferences of sod buyers for low-input turfgrasses". After all, the authors carried out surveys, built a model, etc. It is worth verifying it.
Thank you for the comment, we edited this part following reviewer’s suggestion.
3) I have doubts about the section "Summary ans conclusions". This part is largely a discussion. You may want to consider dividing this chapter into "Discussion" and "Conclusions". Conclusions should be formulated independently, without references to the bibliography.
Thank you for the comment, we changed this chapter to “Discussion” following reviewer’s suggestion.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the changes. I like your revision very much.
