Recent Development of Breeding Cold-tolerant Bermudagrasses.

The turf bermudagrass breeding and genetics research at OSU was initiated in 1986 by Dr. Charles Taliaferro.  The program has been developed in collaborating with scientists in turfgrass science, plant stress physiology, plant pathology, and molecular biology over the years.  The goal of the program is to develop fine-textured, cold-tolerant, seed- and vegetatively- propagated cultivars for the transition zone. Recently, shade tolerance, drought resistance and salinity tolerance have been included as targeted traits to improve. Supporting objectives are to assemble, characterize and maintain diverse germplasm in C. dactylon and C. transvaalensis, to develop and deploy molecular markers in genetic analysis and cultivar identification, to produce new segregating populations by performing specific and interspecific hybridizations for the development of candidates of new cultivars.  One significant progress is the release of two new clonal turf cultivars, ‘Latitude 36’ and ‘NorthBridge’ bermudagrass in 2010.