Source: www.TurfMagazine.com
Alec Kowalewski, Oregon State University’s new turf specialist, jokes that two requirements for the job were to have a Polish-sounding last name and to be a graduate of Michigan State University. 
That’s because he replaces fellow MSU alumnus Rob Golembiewski, who left in March to work for Bayer Environmental Science after coming to OSU in 2008.
Kowalewski, formerly an assistant professor of turf management at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Georgia, began work at OSU on Dec. 31.
He’ll divide his time between teaching, researching and working as a specialist with OSU’s Extension Service to help the turfgrass industry. As the N.B. and Jacqueline Giustina professor in turf management, he is funded in part by an endowment created by the family of OSU alumnus Nat Giustina.
He’ll carry out his research on the plots and putting greens at OSU’s Lewis-Brown Farm and the Trysting Tree Golf Club near campus. He’ll be aided by OSU’s Brian McDonald, a research assistant who maintained the turf program after Golembiewski’s departure. With golf courses, schools and city park departments tightening their belts, Kowalewski plans to conduct experiments that aim to help them maintain acceptable turf conditions on a budget.
At the same time, he intends for his research to also help them reduce their impact on the environment. For example, he’s thinking of testing different varieties of grass that require less irrigation and fertilizer to see which performs the best. Or he might take a look at how naturally derived products like corn gluten meal or soybean meal work as alternatives to pesticides, he said.
"Turf management is really entering what I’d call an environmentally conscious era," he said. "There are a lot of concerns about available resources and the effect management is having on the environment."
Kowalewski will also oversee graduate students’ research, including a project to control Microdochium patch without chemicals. Caused by a fungus, the disease is associated with rainy, cool conditions and forms spots of discolored, damaged grass.
Over the next few months, Kowalewski plans to meet with superintendents, athletic turf managers, landscapers and Extension’s master gardeners to identify other turf problems in the Pacific Northwest they’d like OSU to address.
Kowalewski brings to the position experience as a professor and researcher. In Georgia, he taught during the school year and conducted field trials in the summer. He tested new cultivars of bermudagrass to see how they grew with limited water, infrequent mowing and minimal fertilizer. He also studied how grasses stood up to heavy foot traffic on athletic fields.
Photo: Alec Kowalewski, Oregon State University’s new turf specialist, reaches for a pot of creeping bentgrass at a greenhouse on campus. (Photo by Tiffany Woods.)