Mechanisms of Wear Tolerance in Seashore Paspalum and Bermudagrass

Abstract

tween species. Warm-season turfgrass is typically more wear tolerant than cool-season turf (Youngner, 1961; Traffic causes shoot injury to turfgrass, with resulting inhibition Beard, 1973). Cultural practices, such as increased mowof growth and reduction of quality. Turfgrasses in high traffic venues are generally selected for tolerance to traffic or for an ability to ing height (Beard, 1973; Youngner, 1961), moderate N quickly outgrow the injury. However, limited knowledge exists on fertilization levels (Kohlmeier and Eggens, 1983), and the mechanisms that impart wear tolerance to turfgrass, particularly a thatch layer (Beard, 1973) can also influence wear tolfor warm-season grasses. This field research was undertaken to assess erance. overall wear tolerance within and between seashore paspalum (Pas-While some research has looked at wear tolerance at palum vaginatum Swartz.) ecotypes and bermudagrass hybrids (Cynothe intra-specific level (Beard, 1973), the data are very don dactylon L. ϫ C. transvaalensis Burtt-Davy) and to determine limited as to the degree of severity in wear tolerance the mechanisms that contribute to wear tolerance for both species.within a species, and the specific mechanisms responsi-The research was conducted in two consecutive field trials during 1997 ble for enhanced wear tolerance. Anatomical, morphoon seven seashore paspalum ecotypes and three hybrid bermudagrass logical, or physiological plant characteristics correlating cultivars established on a native Appling (fine, kaolinitic, thermic Typic Kanhapludult) soil at the University of Georgia Experiment with wear tolerance across species may not be the same Station in Griffin, GA. Regression analysis determined that the most within a particular species. important potential mechanism related to enhanced wear tolerance Shearman and Beard (1975a) evaluated interspecies of seashore paspalum was reduced leaf total cell wall (TCW) content, wear tolerance with four measurements: visual ratings, which accounted for 51% of the variation. Other factors that enhanced percentage TCW content, percentage verdure, and perwear tolerance in this species were low leaf strength, low stem TCW, centage chlorophyll per unit area. They found that visual greater leaf moisture, greater shoot density, and higher K shoot tissue wear estimates were well correlated (r ϭ Ϫ0.98) with concentration. In bermudagrass, high stem moisture (40.9% of variaquantitative evaluations when evaluating wear tolertion) and reduced stem cellulose content (31.5% of variation) were ance between species. Canaway (1981) determined that associated with better wear tolerance. Other factors that enhanced percentage of ground cover remaining after wear was wear tolerance were greater stem and leaf moisture, shoot density, leaf lignin, stem and leaf lignocellulose, and concentration of K, Mn, negatively correlated with modified acid detergent fiber and Mg. Knowledge of these characteristics will assist in developing per unit area. screening protocols for selection of future wear toleran...

Anatomical and morphological factors affecting wear tolerance of turfgrass

“…Vincent (1991) confirmed that the strength of the leaves is linearly related to the amount of sclerenchyma and lignin, because lignified fibres from a range of grasses had identical mechanical properties. These investigations suggested that wear tolerance corresponds with anatomical and morphological plant characteristics, namely total cell wall content, quantity of sclerenchyma fibres, tiller density, tiller dry weight, leaf width, leaf tensile strength and shoot density (Hoffman et al, 2010;Shearman and Beard, 1975a,b;Trenholm et al, 2000). This relationship was also confirmed by Dowgiewicz et al (2011) for Agrostis sp.…”

“…The quantitative data are generally more accurate than the subjective data, but the time and costs associated with collecting this information limits its use. The most often used quantitative method is individual plant counts within the collected plug (Trenholm et al, 2000;Vanini et al, 2007). In recent years, digital image analysis has been more frequently and effectively used to measure turfgrass cover.…”

“…Mechanical injuries to turfgrass are usually caused by intensive foot and vehicular traffic. The degree of damage to turfs cellulose content provides the structural stability because of the principal constituent determining the vascular integrity and the tensile strength of the tissue in a wide range of grasses (Greenberg et al, 1989;Lulli et al, 2011;Shearman and Beard, 1975a,b;Trenholm et al, 2000). Vincent (1991) confirmed that the strength of the leaves is linearly related to the amount of sclerenchyma and lignin, because lignified fibres from a range of grasses had identical mechanical properties.…”

“…The wear tolerance of turfgrass is also reliant on certain physiological parameters, namely modified acid detergent fibre (Canaway, 1981), sucrose phosphate synthase and sucrose synthase activity, stem and leaf moisture (Babb and Haigler, 2001;Bayrer et al, 2006;Trenholm et al, 2000), leaf flexibility (Sun and Liddle, 1993), the evapotranspiration rate, leaf chlorophyll concentration, membrane permeability, leaf peroxidase activity, spectral reflectance, tissue potassium (Carrow and Petrovic, 1992) and silica concentration (Trenholm et al, 2001). Unfortunately, the data collected to-date only covers a narrow range of cultivars or forage cultivars or C4 type plants.…”

WinRHIZO Technology for Measuring Morphological Traits of Bermudagrass Stolons

“…It has been reported that stolon morphological traits of bermudagrass are genetically controlled (de Kroon et al, 1994), and their infl uence on turfgrass quality and cold tolerance have been widely studied (Dudeck and Murdoch, 1998;Roche and Loch, 2005;Hensler et al, 1998;Anderson et al, 2007). High stolon density is of crucial importance for cold hardiness and spring recovery from winter injury in many warm-season species (Hensler et al, 1998;Trenholm et al, 2000;Anderson et al, 2007;Rimi et al, 2013b). Cultivar selection of bermudagrass, especially in the transition zone, takes into account stolon density since it has been well correlated to cold hardiness (Rimi et al, 2013b;Dunn and Diesberg, 2004).…”