SportsField Management, February 2018
THE HISTORY OF Cool season Turfgrasses By David Gardner Ph D contributing editor TURF HEALTH The best grasses for an athletic field should ideally be able to tolerate heavy traffic recover quickly from injury plus germinate and establish rapidly They should also have good annual color meaning both the ability to grow and look good at cooler temperatures but have the ability to tolerate heat and drought as well The perfect grass based on these criteria does not yet exist However in most hopefully all cases the grasses you manage on your fields today are not your grandparents grasses or maybe even your parents grasses The industry of breeding new and improved turfgrasses for use in all facets of society is a big business and significant strides have been made in cultivar development for sports fields This months article focuses on the changes in the agronomic characteristics that have occurred in each of the major cool season turfgrasses that we manage as sports turf Poa the bluegrasses The most widely used species in the genus is Kentucky bluegrass Poa pratensis As a species it has good heat tolerance and moderate to good drought tolerance However it has limited tolerance for shade or saline conditions Kentucky bluegrass has finer texture excellent mowing quality and most importantly the ability to spread by underground elongating stems known as rhizomes As such it has the ability to spread much more rapidly than bunch type grasses such as the ryegrasses and fescues Early Kentucky bluegrass varieties were actually selections out of pastures With the advent of breeding and selection programs came the development of cultivated varieties or cultivars Remember that a cultivar is an artificially created group ISTOCK 22 SportsField Management FEBRUARY 2018
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