10  / SEEDWORLD.COM  OCTOBER 2026
The complexity grows exponentially when you realize the 
work doesn't begin months before the tournament. It begins 
years before anyone ever enters a stadium.
“It takes probably close to 10 years to really get something,” 
Bonos says.
That’s a timeline agriculture understands but one that may 
surprise sports fans accustomed to seeing a pitch installed over 
a few days. In reality, what they watched during the World Cup 
was the culmination of thousands of tiny decisions made over 
the course of a decade..
Breeders make crosses, evaluate offspring and repeat the 
process year after year, searching for the right combination of 
traits. Those traits don't look much different from the challenges 
agriculture is solving everywhere else. Turfgrass breeders pursue 
disease resistance, drought tolerance and resilience just like row 
crop breeders do. The difference is that they must also account 
for athletes wearing cleats and changing direction at full speed.
“We evaluate the grasses for all these different stresses,” 
Bonos says. “We have a wear simulator that we use that simu­
lates soccer cleats. We have rainout shelters where we do 
drought screening, we look at heat tolerance, we have a very 
active disease tolerance screening that we do also.”
At Rutgers, the numbers are staggering.
Her team evaluates 51,000 turf plots every month and hun­
dreds of thousands of individual plants used for seed production 
and breeding. Each plot measures just three feet by five feet, 
creating an enormous outdoor laboratory where researchers can 
compare performance under identical conditions.
Some of the most valuable insights come from a machine 
developed decades ago by one of her predecessors. The wear 
simulator repeatedly moves across research plots, allowing 
breeders to recreate the punishment a pitch receives during 
competition.
SOCCER TERMS EVERY SEED PROFESSIONAL SHOULD KNOW
Pitch: The soccer playing surface. If you’re interviewing 
FIFA sources, use “pitch” instead of “field.”
Natural Grass Mandate: FIFA requires World Cup 
matches to be played on natural grass pitches, even 
in stadiums that normally use artificial turf. That’s why 
venues such as AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Mercedes-
Benz Stadium in Atlanta and NRG Stadium in Houston 
underwent massive temporary transformations.
Pitch Manager: The turf professional responsible for 
preparing and maintaining the pitch before, during and 
after matches.
Ball Roll: A measurement of how consistently and 
predictably the ball moves across the pitch. FIFA closely 
monitors this because consistency directly affects play.
The Beautiful Game: A nickname for soccer that has 
become synonymous with the sport worldwide.
Cool-Season vs. Warm-Season Grasses: One of the 
biggest decisions behind World Cup pitch preparation, 
particularly in indoor North American stadiums where 
researchers selected cool-season grasses despite 
warmer climates.
Footing: The interaction between a player’s cleats and 
the pitch surface. It’s a critical performance and safety 
measure.
Divots: Pieces of turf that become dislodged during 
play. The fewer television viewers notice, the happier 
everyone involved tends to be.
Rolls of natural turf were moved into 
position as crews prepared a stadium 
surface for installation, part of the 
carefully coordinated process required to 
build an elite soccer pitch. 
PHOTO: DLF

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