Look down at a lawn, a park, a golf course. USDA’s own plant leaflet calls Kentucky bluegrass “a popular sod-forming grass that is used on golf courses, ski slopes, and campsites” — and every bag of that seed started on a farm that grows the grass for its seed: plant the field once, let it stand for years, then cut it and run it through a combine like a grain crop. USDA’s 2022 farm census prints a bluegrass-seed figure for just five states, and Kentucky is not one of them — the state the grass is named after has no line in this table at all. Even the plant’s home range is written down two different ways inside USDA. Its NRCS Plant Fact Sheet calls Kentucky bluegrass “a perennial, cool-season, sod-forming grass native to Europe.” Its NRCS Plant Guide, for the same species, says “Kentucky bluegrass is native to portions of North America, including areas within the United States” and that “Exact delineation of native status has not been determined.” Which of these four grows the most seed? Tap them most-to-least.
Tapping assigns 1→4 in order
Kentucky bluegrass. Kentucky. This one is free — wait, Kentucky is not even on the list?! Fine. I will take the state with the longest name. 🐾
2Answer
The real order is…
Washington — 28,425,764 pounds of seed out of 62,287,155 for the whole country, nearly half of it, and about 1.46× second-place Idaho. Put the top three together and more than 98% of America’s Kentucky bluegrass seed is growing in one corner of the map — Washington, Idaho and Oregon, the Pacific Northwest. Kentucky is not in the table at all. And the table has a very quiet end: New York’s line reads 153 pounds. Not thousand. One hundred and fifty-three pounds, for the whole state — which is less than the amount USDA left unprinted, so read it as a printed figure rather than as a national place. The top four are national places, and this site checks that on every build. Biscuit’s Field Note takes up the odd part: two USDA leaflets describe this grass’s home range differently.
📚 BackgroundKentucky bluegrass turns up on lawns, parks and playing fields all over the country — USDA’s NRCS calls it “a popular sod-forming grass that is used on golf courses, ski slopes, and campsites” — and somebody has to farm the seed that starts them. It is grown like a grain: a field is planted once, left standing for years, then cut and combined for the seed heads. USDA’s own two leaflets about the plant describe where it is from differently. The NRCS Plant Fact Sheet says flatly that it is “a perennial, cool-season, sod-forming grass native to Europe.” The NRCS Plant Guide for the same species says something different: “Kentucky bluegrass is native to portions of North America, including areas within the United States. Exact delineation of native status has not been determined.” Two documents, one agency, one plant. This site does not pick a side — but the seed map is not in doubt.(USDA NRCS, Plant Fact Sheet, “Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.)”; USDA NRCS, Plant Guide, “Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.)”)↗ (opens in a new tab)
Kentucky bluegrass. Kentucky. This one is free — wait, Kentucky is not even on the list?! Fine. I will take the state with the longest name. 🐾
3Compare
Kentucky bluegrass seed harvested (pounds, 2022)
🇺🇸 United States (national)62,287,155 pounds
Washington#128,425,764 pounds
Most: Washington (28,425,764 pounds); smallest of the five states USDA printed: New York (153 pounds).
Note: pounds of Kentucky bluegrass seed harvested in 2022, from USDA’s Census of Agriculture — a count taken once every five years, not a yearly estimate. The crop counted here is the seed itself, not lawns, sod or pasture, which USDA counts on other lines. USDA NASS. USDA printed a Kentucky bluegrass seed figure for five states. Three more — Nevada, New Jersey and Utah — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms, and the other 42 states have no line in this table at all. Kentucky is one of those 42. Everything USDA did not print comes to 96,700 pounds — less than the 875,630 pounds fourth place printed — so the top four here are in their true national places. New York’s 153 pounds sits inside that hidden margin, so read it as a printed figure. A state with no line is not the same as a state growing none; it only means USDA has no seed figure for it here. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
USDA printed a Kentucky bluegrass seed figure for five states. Three more — Nevada, New Jersey and Utah — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms, and the other 42 states have no line in this table at all. Kentucky is one of those 42. Everything USDA did not print comes to 96,700 pounds — less than the 875,630 pounds fourth place printed — so the top four here are in their true national places. New York’s 153 pounds sits inside that hidden margin, so read it as a printed figure. A state with no line is not the same as a state growing none; it only means USDA has no seed figure for it here. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (2022)
Sources
Data as of: 2022
USDA NASS Quick Stats: GRASSES, BLUEGRASS, KENTUCKY, SEED - PRODUCTION, MEASURED IN LB, 2022 Census of Agriculture, by state↗ (opens in a new tab) (2026-09-03) — Published values only (the committed raw file holds the API response verbatim). USDA printed a Kentucky bluegrass seed figure for five states. Three more — Nevada, New Jersey and Utah — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms, and the other 42 states have no line in this table at all. Kentucky is one of those 42: the state the grass is named after has no seed line in the table. Everything USDA did not print comes to 96,700 pounds, which is less than the 875,630 pounds fourth place printed — so the top four here are in their true national places. New York’s 153 pounds sits inside that hidden margin, so read it as a printed figure rather than as a national rank. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
↳ In Quick Stats, pick GRASSES / GRASSES, BLUEGRASS, KENTUCKY, SEED - PRODUCTION, MEASURED IN LB, Census year 2022, Total domain, and compare states.