Turfgrass species used for sport fields are often selected based on wear tolerance of a mature species. In reality, worn areas of the playing field
are seeded during the playing season resulting in traffic stress on seedling turf. Traffic tolerance of seedling turf and the eventual recovery of the
entire grass system have not been studied
Objective
To determine the ability of various grass species to establish during simultaneous multiple seeding and simulated traffic.
Methods
This study was conducted at the Horticulture Research Farm in Ames, Iowa. Two separate trials were conducted. An autumn trial was seeded September 2002 to simulate fall football and a spring trial was seeded April 2003 to simulate spring soccer. The species evaluated in this study were Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), fine fescue (Festuca sp.), creeping bentgrass (Agrostis palustris), colonial bentgrass (Agrostis capillaris) Col, velvet bentgrass (Agrostis canina) and Poa supina. Each trial followed a Split plot design with 4 replications, 8 treatments (species) and 2 levels of traffic simulation.
The seeding rate (lb/1000sq.ft) and the number of times that each plot was seeded appear in Table 1. Each trial was seeded weekly for six
consecutive weeks after the initial seeding and traffic date. Traffic and seeding began on September 18 for the fall football trial and on April 18
for the spring soccer trial.
Table 1. Species and seeding rates used in the establishment trials.
| Fall Seeded | Spring Seeded | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rate | Seeding | Rate | Seeding | |||
| Turf species | lb/1000ft2 | times | lb/1000ft2 | times | ||
| Kentucky bluegrass | 2 | 6 | 2 | 6 | ||
| Perennial ryegrass | 10 | 6 | 10 | 6 | ||
| Tall fescue | 10 | 6 | 10 | 6 | ||
| Fine fescue | 10 | 6 | 10 | 6 | ||
| Poa supina | 2 | 6 | 2 | 6 | ||
| Creeping bentgrass | 2 | 6 | 2 | 6 | ||
| Velvet bentgrass | 2 | 6 | 2 | 6 | ||
| Colonial bentgrass | 2 | 6 | 2 | 6 | ||
Traffic stress was applied with a GA-SWC traffic simulator (Carrow et al. 2001). Each species received two levels of traffic (split plot) as
indicated in Table 2. Traffic started on September 18 and ended on November 8 for the fall trial. Spring traffic started on April 18 and ended on
June 27.
Table 2. Traffic schedule for fall 2002 and spring 2003.
| Number of passes/week | Number of passes per day | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
| 6 Concentrated | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| 6 Dispersed | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Evaluation of percent turf cover was used to evaluate a species performance during the traffic and recovery periods. Biomass production was determined at the end of each trial (data not shown).
Results
Fall Traffic – Perennial ryegrass had the best turf cover during the fall trafficked establishment period. After the spring recovery period, all of the species had at least 80% turf cover. Some of the fall trafficked seedlings recovered contributed to the spring recovery; however, it was also apparent that some of the fall applied seed germinated in the spring and significantly contributed to the high turf cover ratings at the end of the spring recovery period (Table 3). Since the end of the spring recovery period coincides with the start of the next football season it is clear that perennial ryegrass, tall fescue and fine fescue would have produced the best playing conditions at the start of the fall football season.
Table 3. Percent turf cover of species seeded multiple times in fall of 2002 under 2 levels of simulated traffic.
| Traffic 2002 | Recovery 2003 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep-27 | Oct-23 | Nov-8 | May-29 | Jul-3 | ||
| Turf species | Turf cover (%) | |||||
| Kentucky bluegrass | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 50 | 86 | |
| Perennial ryegrass | 36.3 | 45.6 | 38.8 | 90 | 99 | |
| Tall fescue | 2.0 | 5.0 | 2.0 | 86 | 98 | |
| Fine fescue | 3.3 | 5.0 | 1.3 | 83 | 98 | |
| Poa supina | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 58 | 87 | |
| Creeping bentgrass | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 47 | 83 | |
| Velvet bentgrass | 0.0 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 35 | 82 | |
| Colonial bentgrass | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 34 | 81 | |
| LSD 0.05 | 2.61 | 1.85 | 0.98 | 15.25 | 5.84 | |
| Traffic intensity | ||||||
| Concentrated | n.d. | 7 | 6 | 64 | 90 | |
| Dispersed | n.d. | 7 | 5 | 57 | 88 | |
| LSD 0.05 | NS | NS | NS | NS | NS | |
Traffic intensity did not seem to affect species response; however, recovery seemed to be slightly better in plots with concentrated traffic (Table 3). This indicates that when scheduling events it would be better to have several events on one field in a short period of time followed by a lengthy recovery period (concentrated traffic) as compared with spreading out the same number of events over an extended period with limited recovery time (dispersed traffic).
For the trial seeded in spring, results were a little different. Only tall fescue and perennial ryegrass were significantly better than the other
species by the end of the study. All other species showed around 75% of covered ground. Traffic intensity did not seem to have any influence on species
and their performance.
Table 4. Percent turf cover of species seeded multiple times in spring of 2003 under 2 levels of simulated traffic.
| Traffic period Turf cover (%) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Turf species | May-29 | Jul-3 | |
| Kentucky bluegrass | 11 | 74 | |
| Perennial ryegrass | 53 | 91 | |
| Tall fescue | 27 | 89 | |
| Fine fescue | 34 | 79 | |
| Poa supina | 9 | 72 | |
| Creeping bentgrass | 44 | 74 | |
| Velvet bentgrass | 19 | 78 | |
| Colonial bentgrass | 24 | 76 | |
| LSD 0.05 | 7.65 | 5.03 | |
| Traffic intensity | |||
| Concentrated | 28 | 79 | |
| Dispersed | 28 | 79 | |
| LSD 0.05 | NS | NS | |
Summary
The following turfgrass species were ranked from best to worst according to establishment during traffic stress:
Perennial ryegrass > Tall fescue >Fine fescue = Kentucky bluegrass = Supina bluegrass > Bentgrass
The study will be repeated in 2004.
Literature cited
Carrow, R.N. , R.R. Duncan, J.E. Worley and R.C. Shearman. 2001 Turfgrass traffic (soil compaction plus wear) simulator response of Paspalum
vaginatum and Cynodon spp. P. 253-258. In K .Carey (ed.) Int. Turf Soc. Research J. vol. 9.
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ISU Turfgrass:2004 Turfgrass Report | College of Agriculture |
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