Colorado-grown grass headed to the World Cup: Platteville farm supplying fields for three host stadiums
May 27, 2026, 10:28 AM
Denver may have gotten left off the list of host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but a big piece of Colorado will still play a role in many of the games!
Green Valley Turf, a family-owned sod company in Platteville, was selected to grow the playing surfaces for three of the tournament’s U.S. host stadiums — AT&T Stadium in Dallas, NRG Stadium in Houston and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Together, those three domed venues will host more than a quarter of the World Cup’s 104 matches. On Monday, crews began harvesting and rolling turf destined for Houston, loading the one-ton bundles onto refrigerated trucks for the trip south.
“It seems a little strange that the grass is coming all the way from Colorado, but those buildings will be climate controlled at 70 degrees throughout the whole tournament, so they needed a cool season grass which thrives in our environment that’s near impossible to grow closer to where the venues are,” said Green Valley Turf owner Joe Wilkins III, whose grandfather founded the company in 1962.
The grass is a proprietary blend of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass, developed through a multiyear, $5 million FIFA-funded research partnership between Michigan State University and the University of Tennessee. Workers planted it roughly 14 months ago in two inches of sand on long plastic trays — a technique that allows the sod to be cut into 40-foot strips, rolled up and transported cross-country without soil. Each stadium requires about two dozen truckloads. Once installed atop a laser-graded sand bed, the turf is stitched together with polypropylene fiber and nurtured with grow lights, fans, sprinklers and a precise fertilizer regimen to take root within days.
Producing world-class playing surfaces is familiar territory for Green Valley Turf, which also supplies fields for major league sports teams and international soccer events. But the World Cup represents its most visible stage yet — and a source of pride for the state. Although Colorado is not among the 16 host cities, every goal scored in Dallas, Houston and Atlanta will happen on turf that spent more than a year soaking up the Northern Colorado sun.
