The turfgrass industry encompasses “the production and maintenance of specialized grasses and other ground covers as required in the development and management of facilities for utility, beautification, and recreation.”
It has four functional branches; these are: facilities, manufacturing, servicing, and institutional.
The facilities branch includes golf courses, sports fields, residential and commercial lawns, and roadside and airport turfs.
The manufacturing branch includes the production of equipment, irrigation-system components, planting materials (seed, sod, etc.), fertilizers, pesticides, plant-growth-regulating compounds, and soil amendments.
The servicing branch included distributors and retailers of products, lawn care operators, landscape contractors, architects and designers, contract researchers and consultants, trade and professional organizations, and publishers.
And the institutional branch includes colleges and universities, as well as agricultural experiment stations and extension services. In the United States, this is a multibillion dollar industry that continues to sustain rapid growth under favorable– as well as unfavorable–economic conditions. Recently conducted state surveys revealed that the annual value of all goods and services expended for the management of turfgrass facilities in those states (FL, NC, TX) was approximately 6.5, 4.7, and 6.0 billion dollars respectively (2005 data).
-Turfgrass Management 7th Edition
