Heritability of Rhizomes in Rhizomatous Cultivar JT-783.

Tall fescue is an important turf species and is widely used for sod production. A development which could have a positive economic impact is the use of rhizomatous cultivars for sod production. The benefit of these cultivars is the removal of sod netting from production which could save money in sod production. Many cultivars have been developed with this trait, but none so far have been studied with the intent that the trait remain in the variety when it is sold to the end user. The purpose of this study was to determine the stability of the trait within an existing cultivar and if there was a need for restriction of generations from Breeder to Certified seed class. A random sample of 50 plants were selected from the breeder field of JT-783. Rhizome production was measured and seed harvested from each plant. Progeny was grown from the seed the following year and planted in a greenhouse. Plants from each of the 50 lines were placed in a field in Moses Lake, Washington the following spring and allowed to mature. Before anthesis a random sample of the progeny were measured for rhizome production. The heritability of the trait was estimated and shown to not be very heritable. The reason that we believe this to be the case is that the open pollinated nature of the experiment as well as the environment in which the plants express the trait had a greater effect than the genes controlling the trait. This doesn’t mean that the trait isn’t heritable as we saw that 90% of the parent generation had the trait and 88% of the offspring also had it.

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