Wednesday, November 7, 2007
268-6
Evaluation of Warm-season Turfgrasses for Putting Greens, Fairways, and Lawns in the California Low Desert.
Steven Ries1, Stephen Cockerham, Victor Gibeault2, and Richard Autio3. (1) 1060 Martin Luther King Blvd., University of California-Riverside, University of California-Riverside, Agricultural Operations, Riverside, CA 92507, (2) 4106 Batchelor Hall Extension, University of California-Riverside, University of California-Riverside, Department of Botany & Plant Sciences, Riverside, CA 92521-0124, (3) University of California, Department of Botany & Plant Sciences, Riverside, CA 92521-0124
There is a need to understand the potential of new turfgrasses for golf and general lawns in the severe climate of the Coachella Valley, located in a California low desert. This study documents the performance of selected cultivars of bermudagrass, zoysiagrass and Paspalum vaginatum under golf course putting green and fairway maintenance and general lawngrass maintenance regimes. New, very low growing bermudagrasses under putting green conditions exhibited slow grow-in characteristics under putting green conditions and were slow to transition from the perennial ryegrass overseed to full coverage. The grasses differed in their relative performance as climatic conditions changed. The vegetative bermudagrasses performed better under fairway conditions than two tested seeded bermudagrasses and than ‘De Anza' zoysiagrass. ‘Sea Isle 1' (Paspalum vaginatum) demonstrated good color during the cooler months. Vegetative bermudagrasses transitioned better than the seeded bermudagrasses and zoysiagrass.