Evaluation of Two Seeded Bermudagrasses for Fine Turf Quality and Shade Tolerance.

Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) is the predominant warm-season turfgrass in the U.S., largely due to its excellent turf quality, stress tolerance, and site adaptability.  However, bermudagrasses are typically described as having poor or very poor shade tolerance.  A three-year field study was conducted in Stillwater, OK, from 2014 through 2016 to test the shade tolerance of seeded experimental genotypes (OKS 2011-1 and OKS 2011-4) in comparison with eight commercially available cultivars of bermudagrass (‘Latitude 36’, ‘Northbridge’, ‘Riviera’, ‘Yukon’, ‘Patriot’, ‘Celebration’, ‘TifGrand’, and ‘Princess 77’).  Bermudagrasses were established and evaluated in three different blocks: heavy shade (~89 % shade), moderate shade (~50 % shade), and no shade (0 % shade).  Shaded blocks received shade from both natural vegetation and black shade cloth.  Responses of bermudagrasses were quantified in terms of visual turf quality and normalized difference vegetation index.  Relative performance of experimental lines in comparison to standard cultivars will be discussed.