Turf Performance of Two Seed-Producing Experimental Cultivars in Comparison with Commercial Cultivars in Shade.

Bermudagrass is widely used in golf courses, sports fields, and home lawns in the southern USA. Bermudagrass tolerates drought, disease, insect, traffic, and wear relatively well. However, bermudagrass doesn’t tolerate shade, which limits its use in many landscapes. Thus, discovery or development of shade tolerant bermudagrasses would benefit the golf course and other turfgrass industries. From 2008 to 2011, 45 of experimental entries with high seed yield were tested along with four vegetatively propagated standards, ‘Celebration’, ‘Patriot’, ‘TifGrand’, and ‘Tifton 10’. In 2012, the best overall experimental entries from this study for both shade resistance and turf quality were selected and crossed resulting in two new experimental cultivars, OKS 2011-1 and OKS 2011-4 and one breeding population, OKS 2011-3. The objective of this study was to test the two experimental cultivars in comparison with both commercially available vegetative and seeded cultivars. The research was conducted at the OSU Turfgrass Research Center. The study area consisted of three experimental blocks; heavy shade, partial shade, and full sun. In June 2013, Celebration, OKS 2011-1, OKS 2011-4, ‘Latitude 36’, ‘NorthBridge’, Patriot, ‘Princess 77’, ‘Riviera’, TifGrand, and ‘Yukon’ were planted on .9 m x 1.5 m plots and replicated four times on each of three sites. In 2014, 41% of photosynthetic active radiation was reduced in shade plots compared to full sun plots. Shade stress caused an average 26% decline in TQ and a 7.7% decline in NDVI in 2014. In heavy shade, OKS2011-1 was visually ranked in the top group. Among seeded type bermudagrasses, OKS2011-1 was visually ranked higher than Princess77 and OKS2011-4, equal to Riviera, but lower than Yukon in full sun. OKS2011-4 was visually ranked higher than Pricess77 in shade, but equal to Pricess77 in full sun.