Management Practices Associated with New Bermudagrass Putting Green Genetics.

MSB-285 bermudagrass is a sterile triploid interspecific hybrid between selected genotypes of Cynodon dactylon and Cynodon transvaalensis.  It has been vegetatively propagated from a single seed with no somatic mutations. While Champion, MiniVerde, and TifEagle ultradwarf bermudagrasses are derived from Tifgreen, MSB-285 was developed from a distinctly different genetic background involving no mutations. Due to MSB-285’s unique genetics, management strategies to maximize the performance of this cultivar will likely vary from current ultradwarf bermudagrass management strategies. Therefore, the research objective was to quantify the response of MSB-285 to various mowing height and plant growth regulator (PGR) regimes. Research was conducted at the Rodney Foil Plant Science Research Center located in Starkville, MS. This field trial included three factors: cultivar, mowing height, and PGR applications. Cultivars included MiniVerde, TifEagle, and MSB-285, mowing heights were 0.318 and 0.396 cm’s five days per week, and trinexapac-ethyl was applied at 0, 0.02kg ha^-1, and 0.04kg ha^-1 weekly from June to September. Data collection included ball roll, clipping yield, surface firmness, lateral re-growth, turfgrass quality, chlorophyll index, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf total nonstructural carbohydrates, and various rooting parameters using digital analysis; WhinRhizo. In 2015, MSB-285 had greater clipping yield compared to MiniVerde and TifEagle regardless of mowing height or PGR rate. Due to the increased clipping yield ball roll speeds were significantly lower for MSB-285 compared to 'MiniVerde' and TifEagle.  This research will be repeated in 2016 and final results will be presented at the conference.