Evaluating the Salinity Tolerance of Bermudagrass Cultivars for Production and Reclamation Purposes.

Bermudagrass is a highly productive, warm-season, perennial grass, that has been grown in the United States for turfgrass use, forage, pasture, rangeland, and roadsides. Many production and reclamation sites across the United States are affected by soil salinity issue. Identification of bermudagrasses with improved salinity tolerance is important for the successful implementation bermudagrass production and reclamation of salt affected sites and/or with use of saline irrigation water. In this project, the relative salinity tolerance of 8 vegetative bermudagrass, including industry standards and Oklahoma State University (OSU) experimental lines, are determined. The experiment was conducted under the controlled environment with 6 replications of each treatment. Four salinity levels (0, 15, 30, 45 dS/m) were used to test the 8 bermudagrass entries and the relative salinity tolerance among cultivars will be determined by NDVI, photograph analysis, leaf firing and turf quality relative to the control plants. Results indicate that there are variable responses to salinity stress amongst the cultivars studied.