Monday, October 11, 2010

WHAT IS HAPPENING AT TURFGRASS RESEARCH

Nick Christians
October 11, 2010

It has been a busy time at turfgrass research this fall. Here are a couple of new things for next year.


The first is a new seeding of 007 Creeping Bentgrass. I often get calls at this time of years asking how late can bentgrass be seeded. We have a 10,000 sq. ft. area that we will be seeding over the next few weeks. The first one quarter of the site was seeded on Oct. 8. We will continue to seed each additional quarter on Oct. 15, Oct. 22, and Oct. 29. We will have this on next years field day and you will be able to see the results in August.

007 Creeping Bentgrass area



The second major trial is a new National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) Perennial Ryegrass trial. There are 88 Perennial Rye cultivars in this trial, replicated 3 times. It was seeded on Oct. 1, which is a little late for rye. The wet weather prevented an earlier seeding. The picture below is from Oct. 11. It is amazing how fast perennial rye can establish if conditions are right.


It has been a great fall for Rust (Puccina grminis) on Kentucky bluegrass. The close up shot below was taken on Oct. 11.

Notice how the two clumps of perennial rye in the picture below are not affected and the bluegrass is severely infested with the Rust.

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