Bermudagrass Cultivar Leaf and Stem Percentages and their N Concentration.

There is increasing interest in seeded bermudagrasses because they are less expensive to establish than vegetative cultivars. Subsamples were collected before harvest dates of June 13, July 11, August 14, and October 16, 2007 from four replications of four vegetitively propagated cultivars and eight seeded cultivars or selections. Subsamples were hand separated into leaf blades and stems containing the leaf sheath. After drying, samples were ground to pass a 40-mesh screen and analysized for nitrogen by the Kjeldahl procedure. Leaf percentage tended to be greater in the vegetatively propagated Tifton 85, Coastal, and CoastCross II than the vegetatively propagated Jiggs and seeded entries. Leaf nitrogen concentrations were greater in the seeded entries than the vegetatively propagated entries. Stem nitrogen concentrations were less variable than leaf nitrogen concentrations with no consistent differences between seeded and vegetative entries. Of the vegetative types, Tifton 85 and Jiggs usually had the lowest stem nitrogen concentrations and KF-194 had one of the lowest stem nitrogen concentrations among the seeded types. Bermudagrass entries with greater percent leaf would be expected to have greater digestibility.