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62 SEEDWORLD.COM OCTOBER 2015 About The Author Chengyan Yue holds the Bachman Endowed Chair in Horticultural Marketing and is an associate profes- sor in the the departments of Horticultural Science and Applied Economics at University of Minnesota. By better understanding con- sumers and other stake- holders preferences Yues research provides important guidance and implications for marketing horticultural prod- ucts in strategic ways. RESEARCH SHOWCASE Welcome to Seed Worlds Research Showcase a new department within the magazine. This department is designed to bring more scientific information to readers as well as showcase the work being done by graduate students and their advisors. Are consumers interested in low-input turfgrasses for their home lawns Chengyan Yue Associate Professor Department of Horticultural Science and Department of Applied Economics University of Minnesota Eric Watkins Associate Professor Department of Horticultural Science University of Minnesota Introduction Healthy residential lawns provide important environmental benefits such as urban heat dissipa- tion water quality protection erosion control and carbon sequestration as well as functional and aesthetic benefits to society. Widespread urban development has led to substantial growth in lawn acreage and the subsequent increase in the amount of resource inputs fertilizer water etc.. The use of low-input turfgrass species on residential lawns could be a viable strategy to reduce the rising environmental and economic costs of maintenance inputs as well as satisfy public concerns about water conservation and pesticides and fertilizer reduction. During the past few decades researchers have identified and developed alternative grass species suited for low-maintenance sites. Previous research shows there is market potential for environmentally-friendly goods and services but there has been no information on consumer preferences for maintenance attributes of turfgrasses. The research focused on answering the following questions 1. Will consumers be willing to pay premiums for low-input turfgrasses 2. If yes what are the premiums 3. Will the premiums they are willing to pay be the same for different low-input characteristics such as reduced water use reduced mowing and reduced fertilizer use 4. If not which characteristics glean higher premiums The results presented in this study provide important implications and insights about the market potential of low-input turfgrass species to plant breeders and professionals in the Upper Midwest turfgrass seed industry. Method Presurvey focus groups conducted in April 2010 helped identify a key set of nine turfgrass attrib- utes to include in the study Table 1. Aesthetic quality is important to homeowners and the three aesthetic attributes included in the study were color texture and weed infestation. Many home lawns have a significant amount of shaded area thus shade adaptation was included in the set of attributes. Consumers have shown interest in native plants for landscaping Helfand Sik Park and Nassauer 2006 so origin was also included as an attribute which was defined as being native to the United States or nonnative. Each of the aesthetic attributes shade adaptation and origin had two categories. The focus groups also helped identify three turfgrass maintenance practices of foremost importance to homeowners specifically irrigating fertilizing and mowing. Therefore these three maintenance attributes were included in the choice experiment and each had three input catego- ries corresponding to low moderate and high. Price points were determined based on turfgrass seed prices obtained from consulting with various seed sales professionals in the Minneapolis and St. Paul Minn. metropolitan area. To reduce error in participant estimation price was given as the cost to seed an area 1000 ft2 and prices ranged between 5 and 20 with 5 as the incremental interval. PHOTODAVIDHANSEN.