Search for salt tolerant grasses aims to improve roadside...(d since none of the other fescues survi...)

Her next step is to take the hardiest samples, plant them in the URI turf fields, collect their seeds, and through a process of selection develop a new variety of salt tolerant grass. Then she will test it again and evaluate how well it responds to mowing.

Brown said that the "salt zone" for Rhode Island highways is from 5 to 20 feet from the edge of the pavement, which is based on the distance that cars splash winter slush. It's for use in that zone that the Department of Transportation is seeking a better grass.

The department typically plants a mix of red fescue, perennial rye grass and Kentucky bluegrass along highways, but Brown said that rye and bluegrass grow poorly in roadside soils that are typically low in fertility. She also noted that most fescues are intolerant of salt.

While the research project is driven in part because the U.S Department of Transportation mandates the use of native grasses along roadways, Brown believes that the best alternative for Rhode Island will probably be an improved variety of red fescue a plant which may have been introduced during colonial times that she hopes to develop.

"It seems to do better than our native grasses," Brown said. "We should just use it because it works."

Or, more appropriately, because it lives.

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