USA FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR AT THE FACULTY - Prof E.Guertal

The Faculty has the pleasure of welcoming Prof Elizabeth Guertal, a Fulbright scholar from Auburn University, a state college located in Alabama, USA. In Auburn she is a Professor of Soil Fertility, where she teaches Turf grass Management and Soil Science, and also conducts research in the area of turf grass management.  She is presently living in Quatre-Bornes with her two children Will (age 10) and Sam (age 7), who will soon attend the Clavis School. Her husband will be joining them in late November.

Through his career, she has been awarded several  prizes such as Outstanding Instructor in the Department of Agronomy and Soils, Auburn University, 1995, Outstanding Alumni Award (Young Careerist) - Department Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University, 1996, Novartis Award in Agronomy, American Society of Agronomy, 1997 just to name a few of them. She has published in a wide range of She has been editor of reputed journals and is now currently the Associate Editor, Crop Science.

Dr Guertal holds a Ph.D in Soil Science from Oklahoma State University. Her research program centers on Environmental Turf grass Management. Specifically, she works in the area of fertilizer management and the environmental consequences of applied fertilizer. Other research areas include turf grass cultivar evaluation, fertilizer response trials, and sports turf management evaluations. Current work in progress includes: 1) nitrogen rates for grow-in and maintenance of TifSport and Tifway bermuda grass turf for athletic fields, 2) nitrogen leaching in putting greens as affected by N source, 3) Tifway bermuda grass response to aerification tine size, 4) use of composted poultry litter for putting green construction, 5) phosphorus rate and placement effects in bermuda grass putting greens, and, 6) bent grass response to a microbial dethatcher and other cultivation procedures.

She will be at the Faculty up to December 2010. Her office is in Phase 1 of the Faculty of Agriculture building. She is currently lecturing soil science modules to first and second year students enrolled on the various programmes of studies. She will also be involved the running of two short courses offered by the Faculty:(1) Turfgrass Management and Practices and  (2) Soil Science for Sustainable Turfgrass

We wish her plenty of success at the Faculty and in Mauritius and to meet her set goals for this Fulbright scholarship.

DEAN FOA