Performance of Fine Fescues Under Wear Stress in Different Seasons.

Fine fescues (Festuca spp.) are low maintenance grasses with good shade and drought tolerance. The traffic tolerance of fine fescue is not well understood and the response of fine fescues to traffic may vary based on the season. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of six fine fescue species under abrasive wear during three seasons. The trial was arranged in a 4 x 10 factorial split-plot design with 4 replications. The main plot factor was the season that wear was applied: spring (April to June), summer (July to August), autumn (September to October), and an untreated control. The subplot factor consisted of ten fine fescue entries seeded September 2012 on a loam in North Brunswick, NJ. The trial was mowed at 6.4 cm and irrigated to avoid drought stress. Pests were controlled as needed. Abrasive wear was applied using the Rutgers wear simulator and consisted of eight passes (one pass per week for eight weeks per season). Wear treatments were initiated in autumn 2013 and continued through summer 2016. Turf quality, uniformity of turf cover, fullness of turf canopy, and bruising were visually rated. Data were transformed by calculating the difference between worn and non-wear plots for each entry and analyzed using a 3 x 10 split-plot design. As expected, wear reduced turf uniformity and fullness of cover in all seasons. Wear also bruised leaf but this response was primarily evident during autumn and summer. During the first two years of the trial, the variation in turf performance under wear was attributed mainly to the fine fescue entry; the season of wear was typically not a significant factor. Results from the third year will be reported.