Turf specialists visit grass seed breeding and trial sites in the Netherlands

A group of turf managers and dealers from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and the UK visited Den Haan Zaden’s breeding and trial facilities in the Netherlands for a closer look at the work behind modern turfgrass varieties.

The group represented sports turf, golf, landscaping, lawn care and the professional turf distribution network, bringing both end-user and dealer perspectives to the visit.

A visit to the greenhouse at Den Haan, where new turf grass varieties are bred and specific plant traits are developed.

From breeding material to new cultivars

At Den Haan Zaden, visitors toured the greenhouses where new breeding material is developed and evaluated for specific turf characteristics.

The process starts with genetic material collected from different regions and maintained within Pieter den Haan’s seed bank. Promising plants are selected and crossed, with successive generations evaluated before potential cultivars progress into more extensive field testing.

Developing a new turfgrass cultivar is a long process. From the initial breeding work through repeated evaluation and trialing, a new variety can take around 12–15 years to reach commercial use.

That timescale allows characteristics such as turf quality, density, wear tolerance, disease performance and adaptation to different growing conditions to be assessed over several seasons rather than relying on short-term observations.

Owner Pieter Den Haan showing his grass seed bank from collections made across the European Continent which form the starting point, to breeding unique new turfgrass cultivars.

Evaluating cultivars and seed mixtures in the field

The visit continued into the field trials, where individual cultivars and grass seed mixtures are monitored under turf conditions.

This stage helps determine whether promising breeding material can deliver the characteristics required in practice and how individual cultivars perform when combined within mixtures.

The group also reviewed trials of grass seed mixtures from our ProSelect and Landscaper Pro ranges, providing an opportunity to see how cultivar selection and mixture composition influence the resulting turf.

Simon Taylor, Global Technical Manager for Grass Seeds at ICL, explained that this long-term development work depends on close collaboration between breeders, technical specialists, dealers and the turf professionals ultimately using the cultivars.

“The strength of our relationships with breeders such as Pieter den Haan and Mountain View Seeds gives us access to a wide range of turfgrass genetics and allows us to select cultivars for specific turf requirements. Visits like this also give dealers and turf managers the opportunity to see how much evaluation takes place before a cultivar reaches a seed mixture.”

Reviewing ICL grass seed mixtures in trials that are monitored here for quality. Breeding a new variety takes up to 12–15 years.

Seeing grass seed performance in professional sport

The program finished at the PSV Eindhoven training complex, where the group could see professional sports turf management in practice.

The visit provided a useful link between the breeding and trial work seen earlier in the program and the demands placed on intensively managed football pitches, where grass species, cultivar selection, nutrition and day-to-day management all contribute to surface performance.