As forage research was well underway in Princeton, UK agronomist E.N. Fergus stumbled into forage history on the other side of the state in 1931 when he was asked to judge a sorghum syrup show. Invited to also visit the Suiter Farm in Menifee County during this trip, Fergus observed “an excellent stand of grass on a steep hillside.”

According to Garry Lacefield, former UKREC Extension forage specialist, this was the most crucial farm visit in the history of Kentucky agriculture. The grass had been growing in the field for over forty years. Fergus identified the grass as a tall fescue and returned a few pounds of seed to the university for testing.

UKREC was instrumental in sharing this discovery. It was first seeded in research trials at Princeton in 1932, tested for many years, and then released by UK extension agronomist W.C. Johnstone in 1943 as “Kentucky 31.” By the 1950s, Kentucky 31 tall fescue had become the most widely grown cool-season grass due to its adaptability and strong performance under pasture conditions.  

“It fit into Kentucky,” said extension forage specialist Garry Lacefield, who had worked at UKREC for his entire 41-year career, from 1974 to 2015. “It was tough. It would grow anywhere. It started to grow early, and it would grow late in the season. Farmers really liked it because it was such a good grass, and they could all grow it.”  

However, it also had its disadvantages. Farmers and researchers had observed problems in cattle that grazed in Kentucky 31 pastures, which included reduced weight gain, heat stress, and hoof problems. By the 1970s, researchers at UK had identified an association of certain alkaloids with the condition eventually called fescue toxicosis, which can affect cattle, sheep, and horses. 

The popular and resilient tall fescue harbored an endophyte fungus that produced the toxic alkaloids, but the association of the endophyte and the poor performance of cattle wasn’t fully documented until controlled grazing experiments at Auburn University confirmed it in 1980.  

Following the discovery of a problematic endophyte within the plant that caused these issues nearly 50 years after its distribution, UK’s forage specialists first responded with an endophyte-free variety called Johnstone in 1982.  Without the endophyte, however, the fescue lost much of its hardiness and resistance to environmental and management stresses, such as overgrazing, that had made it a farmers’ favorite.

As fescue toxicosis was having an economic impact on the Kentucky beef industry, Lacefield knew the next, and nearly impossible, step was to develop a variety with a less problematic endophyte. In the meantime, UK Extension forage specialists worked to help farmers transition to safer forages and adopt grazing strategies to lessen toxin exposure, management practices that are still recommended today.

Rather than no endophyte at all, what the industry needed was a variety with a less problematic endophyte. Lacefield thought it was a pipe dream until he had the opportunity to visit the laboratory of a researcher in New Zealand, Dr. Gary Latch, who had found one, marketed as Max Q® by the Pennington Seed Company, in 1997, and new varieties were developed with the novel endophyte; the first was called Jesup MaxQ. 

UK plant breeder Tim Phillips developed a Kentucky-born, endophyte-free tall fescue using the Max Q endophyte in the early 2000s and tested it for 12 years. Lacefield Max Q II® was released by the University of Kentucky in 2018. Phillips named the variety for Lacefield upon his retirement to honor his numerous contributions to the forage industry and the college.    

In 2005, Lacefield estimated that the original endophyte was costing the beef industry in the southeastern United States more than $1 billion annually. However, with new viable options available, UKREC forage specialists worked to help many farmers transition to safer forages while still maintaining strong yields. They also instructed farmers on additional grazing strategies to potentially lessen toxin exposure from the original fescue varieties.  

“The work at UKREC was always a team effort,” Lacefield said. “The contributions of colleagues like Donnie Davis, the longtime UKREC superintendent who never delegated a farm task that he could quickly fix himself, and Christi Forsythe, Lacefield’s administrative assistant, whose deep knowledge of the program led to her co-authorship on international papers, were instrumental. The center’s work was also powered by the state’s network of dedicated and talented county extension agents, who were second to none in the United States.”  

1 TALL FESCUE IN KENTUCKY: THE FIRST 80 YEARS Garry D. Lacefield Extension Forage Specialist University of Kentucky. 2011.

By Susan Baniak and Jennifer Elwell, University of Kentucky Marketing and Agricultural Communications