My name is Dominic Petrella, and I’m the new program coordinator of the Ohio State University Agriculture Technical Institute (OSU-ATI) Turfrgass Management Program [Turfgrass Management | Ohio State ATI (osu.edu)]. I’m originally from Girard Ohio, a suburb of Youngstown that is located in southern Trumbull county. My connection to the turf industry started when my dad started taking me golfing around the age of 8. For those of you from the Mahoning Valley, I grew up playing golf at Mahoning Country Club, Tamer Win, Hubbard Golf Course, Candywood Golf Course (R.I.P), Mill Creek Metro Parks North and South Courses, Old Avalon, Avalon Lakes Country Club, Squaw Creek Country Club, Yankee Run Golf Course, and many many more. The game of golf is at the heart of why I am here at OSU-ATI, and this is something I’m looking to continue for both our teaching and research programs.
Growing up, I had no clue that studying turfgrass management was an option at Ohio State, let alone at Ohio State ATI; I only knew about the Penn State program. Instead, after graduating from Girard High School, I attended Youngstown State University (YSU) to study Biology in hopes of going into a medical field. After graduating from YSU, I soon realized medicine wasn’t for me, and after squandering around for a bit it was my dad who searched and found the turfgrass program at Ohio State main campus. I studied as both an undergraduate and graduate student in the turfgrass program at Ohio State main campus, working with both Dr. Ed Nangle and Dr. Dave Gardner during my previous tenure at OSU. My primary area of research during graduate school was turfgrass responses to high-intensity light and response to specific wavelengths of light. This is what I love working on; light has a massive impact on turfgrass growth and development, and this is something I will continue working on for years to come.
After finishing graduate school, I went and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the University of Minnesota (UMN) Turfgrass Science Program under Dr. Eric Watkins for around 4.5 years [Turfgrass Science News | Turfgrass Science (umn.edu)]. At UMN I learned more about turfgrass breeding, turfgrass seed production, low-input turfgrass management, and continued my research on turfgrass responses to light and shade. Learning how to collaborate and write grants to obtain research funding was a key are of my postdoctoral education at UMN, and this is something I look to bring onboard at Ohio State.
My role at OSU-ATI is both one of teaching and research. Alongside Dr. Ed Nangle, I am teaching, advising, and getting students setup with summer internships. I am looking to bring fresh ideas to the teaching program such as training students how to best use technology in their day-to-day work. As an example, this will include teaching students how to monitor and use soil volumetric water content data for irrigation decisions; teaching students how to use the equipment, manage data, analyze data, and use that data for decision making. I am also looking to incorporate more low-input turf management education into our program; low-input species selection, management with reduced resources, and adjusting expectations with a low-input attitude.
Doing research is also very much a part of who I am, and I’ll be doing as much research as possible in my role at OSU-ATI. This research will heavily involve students to help inform them of how the practices they use are developed, but I also believe that including the students in an everyday role in our research program will make them more apt to trust academic research in the future. Going forward our research program will be two pronged; one arm aimed at working with industry to develop research projects that will impact their jobs right now, and the second arm devoted to fundamental questions that will impact the industry in the future years. This will include optimizing fertility programs for new cultivars, development of new cultural practices, and better understanding turfgrass responses to environmental stress to help us develop improved cultivars. If you’re an industry professional with turf problems that need addressed through research, please don’t hesitate to reach out so we can develop projects together as we move forward.
I’ll be using this blog to post research updates, educational tidbits, and information about our teaching program. Be on the lookout for bi-weekly articles and updates.