Wednesday, November 15, 2006
263-10

Interaction of cool season grass species during over seeding and traffic simulation.

David Minner and federico valverde. iowa state university, horticulture hall, ames, IA 50011

Athletic fields in northern climates are often established with Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) (KB), however, extensive traffic often leads to over seeding with compatible species to maintain turf cover.  A mature stand of KB was routinely over seeded with KB, perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) (PR) and supina bluegrass (Poa supina Schrader) (SB) in the presence of simulated traffic.  The purpose was to determine which species maximized turf cover and which species dominated the turfgrass sward. This study was conducted at the Iowa State University Horticulture Research Farm in Ames Iowa on a 2-yr old stand of Unique KB growing on a sand based root zone. Autumn and spring traffic was simulated in separate study areas initiated on 6 September 2002 and 2 May 2003, respectively. Traffic simulation was applied weekly for 10 weeks after every seeding with a GA-SWC traffic simulator. Seeding rates were 4.9, 9.8, 14.7 g∙m-2 for KB, 4.9 g∙m-2 for SB and 9.8, 19.5, 29.3 g∙m-2 for PR. Kentucky bluegrass over seeding did not increase turf cover and tiller density was only slightly increased from 0.61 to 0.84 tiller∙cm-2 during autumn seeding conditions.  Best turf quality, cover and tiller density were obtained with 29.3 g∙m-2 of PR in both autumn and spring seeding. Supina bluegrass only showed improvements of turf cover and tiller density over control plots during the last year of study.

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