Another kind of crop is taking root in North Carolina. You might have just been walking on some moments ago or seen your favorite team run on it.

The urban sprawl of this state, along with growing demand for high quality surfaces at athletic complexes, has sparked the demand for turf grass.

That’s what prompted Henderson County Farm Bureau member Fred Pittillo to get out of the dairy business and into turf. “We started growing sod in 1987 and sold our cows in 1993. I wanted to have family members in the business and I wanted them to be able to make a living,” Pittillo says. “I thought there could be a need for it, especially with all the golf courses, and the dairy industry was not supporting our family the way I wanted it to.”

Golf courses are a source of revenue for Pittillo, but he also provides sod for athletic facilities, commercial business and homeowners. Pittillo currently has about 1,200 acres of sod and is happy with the decision he made 22 years ago to switch from milk to grass.

“I got in at the right time and in farming, timing is critical,” Pittillo says.

According to Grady Miller, a professor and extension specialist at N.C. State University’s Department of Crop Science, North Carolina just so happens to be a fertile place for sod to flourish.

Miller explains that North Carolina’s coastal region and mountain areas allow a wide spectrum of turf to grow. Warmer or cooler states likely can provide the setting for one specific kind, but North Carolina can handle a half dozen or more.

“That’s a very unique aspect of this market. If you’re a consumer or someone wanting grass, you can pick up the phone and you can find all the grass you would want to purchase grown right here in this state,” Miller says. “There are not a lot of states that have that luxury and opportunity.”

For some North Carolina farmers, raising turf grass is the top passion. Sandhill Turf is based in Candor in Montgomery County. The Harris family established the operation in 1986 on a farm that’s been in their family since the 1950s.

“The sod business is very intense,” says Charles Harris, who runs the farm with his brother, Mark.

Cultivating what would appear to be an enormous lawn is a little more complicated than you might expect. Miller noted that sod farmers face some of the same challenges as those raising other kinds of crops. Factors associated with weather or irrigation must be considered along with measures to reduce pests. From there, sod farming takes different turns.

“Most farmers are accustomed to growing and harvesting within a relatively short period of time,” Miller says. “You have a planting season. Then you have a certain amount of time to let the plant mature and produce some type of yield product, a grain or what have you, and they harvest it. It’s an annual type of crop.

“Some of our turf grasses, you have a great amount of difficultly in harvesting within the same year you planted,” he adds. “We have some grasses that you can do that annually like tall fescue. But then you have some that take 18 months before you can harvest. The time period can be very different from what a traditional agricultural crop may be.”

Unlike a crop such as corn that would rot in the field if not harvested, sod can remain until a market price or demand rises.

“Being able to market your own product means you do have some say in the price,” Pittillo says.
The harvest flexibility is part of what has caused some North Carolina farmers to trade in their acres of soybeans or cotton for turf.

“They saw that as something to diversify and use their land to put a different crop in and continuing farming,” Miller says.

When that sod is harvested, it’s not likely to be shipped far before being placed at its intended destination.
“Most of the grass that’s grown in North Carolina stays in North Carolina,” Miller says.

Once that sod is planted somewhere in North Carolina, the next major industry element comes into play—maintaining that sod to be green and healthy.

Tommy Walston has many acres of athletic fields to oversee at East Carolina University in Greenville.

Walston’s also heading up a project that will add more than 125 acres of turf and other athletic field facilities, making the complex one of the largest in the country. Keeping the grass green is only one part of his job description.

“While aesthetics is a goal, safety is number one,” says Walston, who also is the president of the North Carolina Sports Turf Managers Association.

“We have a little saying in sports turf that it grows by the inch but it dies by the foot, and what it refers to is the feet from athletes,” Walston continues. “It’s the foot traffic that we put up with every night. The recovery from that is our biggest trouble. You run into compaction. The grass doesn’t grow. You start to have water standing and then it creates safety issues with kids slipping and sliding and getting hurt. Number one, and it will always be, provide a safe athletic field.”

Having a safer field also was part of the goal of the recent reconstruction of the football playing surface at N.C. State’s Carter-Finley Stadium with turf from Sandhill Turf. Falcon Engineering of Raleigh headed up the project that began in late April and culminated in early August. Falcon President Tommy Faulkner described how the field has been transformed from one with a significant crown in the middle to a surface that’s “as flat and smooth as a pool table.” The sod and drainage system also can handle as much as 11 inches of rain per hour with pooling on the surface.

“It’s going to be a pleasant surprise for a lot of Wolfpack fans,” Faulkner says.

Whether it’s for college football, recreational sports or the lawn on either side of a homeowner’s front walkway, sod produced in North Carolina is in high demand. It’s another segment of the state’s agriculture industry expected to grow.

“There are a lot people who have a passion for turf,” Walston says. “We’re in a great industry right now.”