With new golf courses being built throughout the country, Mexico is setting a new standard of excellence when it comes to the environmental issues and golf course development. With concerns of water conservation at the forefront of the industry, and new environmental regulations being imposed everywhere regarding pesticide usage on golf courses; the majority of new courses being built in Mexico are using a new grass called Seashore paspalum (The Environmental Turfgrass). Seashore paspalum is a remarkable species of grass, and among the recent releases of new paspalum cultivars, SeaDwarf® is unique.

SeaDwarf® Characteristics

• True ‘dwarftype’ paspalum
• Blue-green color with excellent striping (from mowing patterns)
• Very tight, dense surface
• Widest adaptation to environmental conditions and applications
• Can tolerate periods of drought
• Maintained to mow heights of 0.1 inch, making it perfect for putting greens
• Infrequent mowing needed for heights of 2-3 inches
• The best cold weather color retention, eliminating the need to winter overseed with a cool season grass.
• The most salt tolerant, with the ability to withstand ongoing irrigation having salinity levels in excess of 20,000 ppm TDS
• Recovers quickly from divots and traffic and wear
• Pesticides are virtually unnecessary when using a paspalum grass and saline irrigation.

SeaDwarf® Grass at Las Caras de Mexico Golf Course

Being extremely salt tolerate alone makes SeaDwarf® a popular choice for golf course developers looking to utilize saline water sources for irrigation, and thereby eliminating the need to deplete our precious fresh water supplies for future generations.

The turf color and density of SeaDwarf® are unsurpassed. It has a nice blue-green color with excellent striping (from mowing patterns) and forms a very tight, dense surface that golfers love to play on. It is not uncommon to see SeaDwarf® rhizomes down 4-6 inches in the soil, with roots reaching 2 feet deep. Having such an extensive root system enables SeaDwarf® to recover very quickly from divots, traffic and wear, and helps it to tolerate periods of severe drought.

Being in a desert Biosphere Reserve zone here at San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico; we had no choice but to use a paspalum grass. We chose to use SeaDwarf® wall-to-wall on our new Las Caras de Mexico (the Faces of Mexico) golf course, because of its’ unique and environmentally friendly characteristics. We are very happy with our accomplishment (the first golf course in San Felipe) and also very proud to be a part of the new environmentally aware Mexico.

Sunrise over the SeaDwarf® Turf Farm

The Development and Sale of SeaDwarf®

Rising from the dregs of harsh environmental conditions, SeaDwarf® paspalum is now poised to take on the tough conditions found in Mexico and other inhospitable regions."

SeaDwarf® Seashore paspalum is a turf arising from a research program geared toward saline habitats and designed for harsh growing conditions. SeaDwarf® was developed from a turf breeding program designed around a breeding technique termed ‘mass deselection’. What this means is that potential turf cultivars are screened out or culled, based upon their ability to handle harsh, saline environmental conditions. Michael DePew, the turf developer primarily responsible for the development of SeaDwarf, describes the breeding program: "Basically we would evaluate our turf progeny and see if we could kill them with close mowing, high traffic, high growing temperatures, compacted soils and high salinity. If the turf survived this regime, then it had potential as a turf in our program and it would then undergo further evaluation.”

From this harsh turf development program emerged the turf ‘SeaDwarf’®. This turf is now available for golf development in Mexico and has been successfully used on two recent golf constructions. These courses include Las Caras de Mexico in San Felipe, Baja California; and The Links @ Las Palomas in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico. Both of these courses have faced extremes of high salinity, water shortages, high desert temps coupled with high humidity, freezing temps and constant winds. Many times these courses had to resort to using water exceeding 12,000 ppm during the grow-in period with temperatures exceeding 105 degrees. SeaDwarf® has also been tested in high salinity extremes from the Caribbean to North Africa to the Middle East.

We are a local and International supplier of SeaDwarf®. We run a turf nursery operation in San Felipe for providing SeaDwarf® to new golf course developments in Mexico and internationally. We also own the US plant patent for SeaDwarf®, with Environmental Turf Inc., a Florida corporation,. having all rights to the trademark and patent as the Master Licensor. Recently, we provided SeaDwarf® paspalum from our turf nursery to Las Palomas Seaside Golf Community in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico for their new golf course opening 2005. They also chose to plant SeaDwarf® wall-to-wall because it provides a great playing surface for golf, tee-to-green.

Commercial quantities are available for projects throughout Mexico from production sites within Mexico.

If you are interested in finding out more about SeaDwarf® Grass or would like to use it on your new golf course development please feel free to contact us in Mexico:

From the US & Canada 011 - 52 - 686 - 576-0585
From Mexico (686) 576-0585
Fax: (686) 577-6105
Cell: (686) 573-0285

Come tee it up on our beautiful SeaDwarf paspalum, seaside golf course.....you’ll love the experience!!

Jim Draper GCS
Director of Golf & Turf Operations
Las Caras de Mexico GC @ La Ventana del Mar
San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico
Suppliers of SeaDwarf® paspalum