2017 ASHS Annual Conference

The expansion of turgrasses coverage in recent years has led to subsequent increase of resources (e.g., water, pesticides, fertilizer), potential environmental problems such as excess nutrients and pesticides in urban watersheds, and potential negative impacts on human health. To address this issue, low-input turfgrasses with improved attributes (such as drought tolerance and reduced nitrogen requirements) have been developed. Using the survey data with about 3,000 US and Canadian turfgrass consumers, this article examines a series of hypotheses and unveils the underlying mechanism of the factors that drive consumers’ willingness to buy low-input turfgrasses. By using structural equation modeling, we found that attitude is one of leading factors that affect consumers’ willingness to purchase, and consumers’ attitude is driven by consumers’ environmental concern, health consciousness and attribute importance of the turfgrasses.