Utilizing a Web-Accessible Turfgrass Identification Tool.

Over the past decade there has been tremendous expansion in web-available content related to turfgrass management. One of the most common questions that Turfgrass Extension Specialists frequently receive is: “What turfgrass species do I have growing in my lawn?”.  Proper turfgrass species identification is important for making suitable management and/or control decisions. Without physically seeing the sample or sufficient high quality visuals of similar species to make the determination this task is difficult to nearly impossible. In response to this need, an online web-based tool was designed to assist home-owners, turfgrass professionals and students in their effort to learn to correctly identify the major turfgrass species growing in lawns. This self-paced tool was created in Adobe Flash® and uses image rich content of the major distinguishing characteristics and a searchable database for the major turfgrass species commonly cultivated in lawns. This tool is free to users and resides on the Purdue University Turfgrass Program’s website at the following web address: http://www.agry.purdue.edu/turf/tool/index.html . This tool has been very well received, having been accessed > 100,000 times since it’s inception in June 2005.  In summary, this concept of providing web-based diagnostic aids to the public has been very helpful in empowering end users and improving the response time for answers to at least one “frequently asked question”.