Drought response of 10 bermudagrass genotypes under field and controlled environment conditions

Abstract

Abstract Fresh water scarcity is increasingly affecting urban landscapes, and the best strategy for sustaining the turfgrass industry would be to create, select, and use drought‐resistant genotypes. Bermudagrasses (Cynodon spp.) have different mechanisms to survive drought stress either by growing long roots, stomatal regulation, or accumulating biochemical solutes in the leaf. The drought response of 10 bermudagrasses was evaluated under two environments: (a) unrestricted root zone in the field and (b) restricted 17‐cm root zone in a greenhouse. Each study consisted of four commercially available (‘Latitude 36’, ‘Tifway’, ‘TifTuf’, and ‘Celebration’) and six experimental genotypes (OSU1337, OSU1403, OSU1439, TifB16101, TifB16113, and TifB16120). In the field study, all the genotypes survived the 60‐ and 49‐d dry‐down periods in 2017 and 2018, respectively, without completely browning off. Results showed a range of drought performance among genotypes, with TifTuf and Latitude 36 being the best‐ and worst‐performing industry standards, respectively. TifB16101, TifB16120, and TifB16113 were consistently the top performers with a leaf firing (LF) and turf quality (TQ) above 6, lower canopy temperature (CT), and greater normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values in the field. However, when grown in 17‐cm pots, TifTuf, TifB16113, and TifB16120 demonstrated a TQ below 6 within 6 and 9 days of drought (DOD) in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The discrepancy between studies suggests that these genotypes may have the ability to extract water from deeper soil profiles when root zones are unrestricted. Furthermore, these findings reinforce the importance of soil depth in maintaining turfgrasses without supplemental irrigation.