NC DROUGHT!

North Carolina Drought Advisory Council

NC Division of Water Resources, DENR

N.C. Division of Forest Resources, Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI)

USGS North Carolina - DroughtWatch

TurfFiles is a Web site created to provide turfgrass information to a diverse audience: homeowners, students, extension personnel, and professional turfgrass managers.  Funding for this site has been provided by the Center for Turfgrass Environmental Research and Education (CENTERE) and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at North Carolina State University (NCSU). Information available on this site has been provided by faculty and staff in the Departments of Crop Science, Entomology, Horticulture, Plant Pathology, and Soil Science at NCSU.

Although we have concentrated on providing information of interest to citizens of North Carolina, we hope that much of the site content will be useful to those who live outside the borders of North Carolina.

We hope you will find our site helpful, will bookmark it, and will return to it periodically to check out new features and new information. Please let us know of any problems, suggestions, or questions: Webmaster.

Important features of the site include:

• The main menu is over on the left, not across the top of the screen!
• Information is organized in tabs according to the type of posting. For example, all presentations will be found under the tab “Presentations.” Reports of NTEP, herbicide, and fungicide research trials will be found under the tab “Reports.” Items on each tab can be sorted by any column heading which is clickable (underlined). For example, items on the “Articles” tab can be sorted by date, author, publication number, or title.
• Content can be viewed in many different ways. You can select a Topic from the menu on the left, such as “Weeds,” and view all information available on the site about that topic. Or you can view information about a more specific subject by selecting a keyword, either by accessing the keyword page from the main menu, or by clicking on a keyword contained in an article. All the keywords contained in an article are listed at the bottom of the article.
• Information sheets are provided for many turfgrasses, weeds, diseases, insects, and other pests. These sheets should assist you with identification, prevention, and control of many pests found in North Carolina. They are updated whenever new information or photographs become available. A link at the top of each information sheet will lead you to additional information about that specific turfgrass or pest.
• Interactive decision aids have been created to assist you with selecting and managing your turfgrass. The newest decision aids are TIMS (Turf Irrigation Management System), and Disease Identification. Other decision aids which have been very popular include: Turf/Cultivar Selection, Turf/Weed Identification, and Weed Management. We are continuing to add new decision aids. Look for our Disease Management Decision Aid in 2008.
• Icons can alert you to the intended audience for a particular item, or the general topic:

  • 	Article contains terms, results, and products that are targeted to homeowners
    	Article contains terms, results, and products that are targeted to turf professionals
    	Article contains terms, results, and products that are targeted to students
    	Articles containing information about turfgrass diseases
    	Articles containing information about turfgrass insects
    	Articles containing information about other turfgrass pests (e.g., nematodes, moles)
    	Articles containing information about turfgrass management
    	Articles containing information about water quality
    	Articles containing information about turfgrass weeds

• A glossary (dictionary) of terms used on the site has been created. Select “Glossary” from the Main Menu to see terms included. We plan to add to this over time. See a term in a posting that isn’t in the glossary and isn’t familiar to you? Send us a note and we’ll try to add it: Webmaster.
• All content provided by a particular scientist can be accessed through his home page.
• For best performance of the site, use Internet Explorer Version 6 or higher, or Mozilla Firefox Version 2 or higher.

Those responsible for the site:

TurfFiles is maintained by the Crop Systems Laboratory in the Crop Science Department at NCSU.

Project Managers: Gail Wilkerson, Emily Erickson

Design, programming, maintenance: Greg Buol, Jenifer Jordan Reynolds, David Zahn, Mike Sturgill

Photographs and content management: Jenifer Jordan Reynolds and Bridget Robinson Lassiter

Copyright policy:

All site content is copyrighted by North Carolina State University. Please abide by the copyright laws and policies of the U.S. If you would like permission to use photographs or other content for purposes not allowed under the copyright laws, please contact the Webmaster for permission.