Evaluation of Warm Season Grasses for Use in Southern Dog Parks.

Dog parks are fenced areas dedicated to the off-leash play and exercise of dogs in a controlled environment under the supervision of their owners. There are over 600 dog parks across the USA and this is a rapidly increasing use among parklands.  Turfgrass is the groundcover of choice for many of these parks.  Due to the high volume of dog and human traffic, many of these parks have very poor quality turfgrass or no groundcover at all.  A study was undertaken to evaluate ten grass cultivars for use in dog parks.  The study area was in the Starkville, MS dog park.  The cultivars tested were hybrid bermudagrass (Cynodon xmagennisii), MS-Express, Tifway; seashore paspsalum (Paspalum vaginaturm), Seadwarf, Seaisle1; zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica), Zorro, Meyer, Palisades; centipedegrass (Eremochloa ophiuroides), St. Augustine grass (Stenotaphum secondatum), Palmetto  and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea).  The grasses were established by sod early May 2009 in 3.0 m by 2.7 m plots arranged in a randomized complete block design.  Turfgrass quality was evaluated monthly and the effects of dog urine and dog feces on the grass were noted.   The tall fescue plots did not survive the summer heat and died and were worn to bare soil and weeds by August.  The rest of plots maintained over 90% turf cover throughout the first growing season.  The fall and winter of 2009-2010 was one of the wettest on record in Stakville and soil at the site remained saturated for much of this period.  In the spring of 2010 it appeared that some plots of centipede grass and St. Augustine grass have not survived the winter well.  All the rhizomatous warm season grasses tested appear to have survived the winter.