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Advanced Turf-Type Bermudagrass And ADVANCED TURF-TYPE BERMUDAGRASS AND ZOYSIAGRASS EXPERIMENTAL GENOTYPES SHOW MARKED VARIATION IN RESPONSES TO DROUGHT STRESS UNDER FIELD CONDITIONS By SHUHAO YU Bachelor of Science in Agronomy Sichuan Agricultural University Yaan, Sichuan, China 2013 Bachelor of Science in Crop Science Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA 2013 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE May, 2017 ADVANCED TURF-TYPE BERMUDAGRASS AND ZOYSIAGRASS EXPERIMENTAL GENOTYPES SHOW MARKED VARIATION IN RESPONSES TO DROUGHT STRESS UNDER FIELD CONDITIONS Thesis Approved: Dr. Dennis L. Martin Thesis Adviser Dr. Yanqi Wu Dr. Justin Q. Moss ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to give sincere gratitude to my advisor Dr. Dennis Martin for his knowledge, motivation, guidance and support throughout my research program at Oklahoma State University. I appreciate his insightful suggestions and detailed explanations of all of the difficulties that I came across. I would also like to express my thanks to the rest of the members of my thesis advisory committee consisting of Dr. Justin Moss and Dr. Yanqi Wu for their suggestions, guidance, and encouragement. I would also like to thank all of the staff and students working at the OSU Botanical Garden and the Turfgrass Research Center for their support. Particularly, I would like to thank Bart Frie, Kent Elsener, Dan Valdez, Clayton Hurst, Lydia Calhoun, Chrissie Segars, Dustin Harris, Lakshmy Gopinath and Jimi Underwood. I would especially like to thank my roommate Liang Xue and my friend Jian Huang for helping me uncover my research plots as needed during many early weekend mornings. Without all of their help, I would have never completed this research. Additionally, I would like to thank Stephanie Larimer, Donna Dollins, Karen Williams, Cherry Gray and Diane Galloway from the Horticulture and Landscape Architecture Department. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents and all of my friends for all of the strength and encouragement they have given. Without their faithfully support, I could not have overcome the many obstacles during the conduct of my research and writing of my thesis. iii Acknowledgements reflect the views of the author and are not endorsed by committee members or Oklahoma State University. Name: SHUHAO YU Date of Degree: MAY, 2017 Title of Study: ADVANCED TURF-TYPE BERMUDAGRASS AND ZOYSIAGRASS EXPERIMENTAL GENOTYPES SHOW MARKED VARIATION IN RESPONSES TO DROUGHT STRESS UNDER FIELD CONDITIONS Major Field: HORTICULTURE Abstract: Bermudagrasses (Cynodon spps.) and zoysiagrasses (Zoysia spps.) are the most commonly used warm-season turfgrasses in the southern and transition zone areas of the United States. It is important to improve turfgrass drought resistance for water savings and persistence under drought stress. A number of experimental and commercially available turf bermudagrasses and zoysiagrasses were evaluated for drought response at the Oklahoma State University Turfgrass Research Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma during 2016. The trials were designed as randomized complete blocks with four replications for the zoysiagrass and one of the bermudagrass trials and three replications on another bermudagrass trial. Following a one-year period of establishing under regular irrigation, all trials were maintained under no irrigation and no rainfall upon the start of a dry down cycle. Polyethylene waterproof tarps were used to exclude rainfall from each trial. Entries were evaluated for turf quality (TQ), leaf firing (LF), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and live green cover (LGC) at least once each week during the dry down cycle. Turf quality, LF, NDVI, and LGC were positive and highly correlated, suggesting that they were effective indicators for characterizing turfgrass drought response. Mean volumetric soil water content (MVSWC) had a positive and low to moderate correlation to LF, TQ, NDVI and LGC. Days after starting drought treatment (DAT) had a negative and moderate to high correlation to TQ, LF, NDVI, LGC and MVSWC. As DAT increased, all the testing parameters had decreased. ‘TifTuf’ bermudagrass had the highest rating of all parameters (indicating best drought response) on most dates during severe drought. ‘OSU1221’ bermudagrass provided better performance than other experimental genotypes on most dates during severe drought. All bermudagrass experimental genotypes showed equal or improved performance with respect to drought response than the standard ‘Tifway’ during most dates under severe drought. ‘DALZ1411’ had the overall best performance on all four parameters among all the zoysiagrass entries. Zoysiagrass standards ‘Empire’, ‘Zeon’, and ‘Palisade’ were not as drought resistant as most of the experimental genotypes. All zoysiagrass experimental genotypes except ‘FZ1223’ showed improvement in drought response over all standards. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. LITERATURE REVIEW ...........................................................................................1 Drought ....................................................................................................................1 Water and turfgrass ..................................................................................................2 Bermudagrass ...........................................................................................................4 Zoysiagrass ..............................................................................................................6 Turfgrass drought response ......................................................................................8 Response of bermudagrass and zoysiagrass shoot system to drought stress…........9 Goals and objectives…...........................................................................................12 Research hypotheses…..........................................................................................14 Literature cited…...................................................................................................15 II. MATERIALS AND METHODS ............................................................................21 Research site and plant materials establishment ....................................................21 Cultural management .............................................................................................22 Implementation of drought condition ....................................................................23 Data collection .......................................................................................................25 Experiment design and statistical analysis .............................................................28 Literature cited .......................................................................................................29 III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................................33 Environmental conditions ......................................................................................33 Results for experiment I .........................................................................................34 Results for experiment II .......................................................................................38 Results for experiment III ......................................................................................42 Discussion ..............................................................................................................46 Conclusions…........................................................................................................51 Literature cited…...............................................................................................................94 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Bermudagrass cultivars and experimental selections tested for drought responses in experiment I……………………………………………………………………………30 2. Bermudagrass cultivars and experimental selections tested for drought responses in experiment II …..............................................................................................................31 3. Zoysiagrass cultivars and experimental selections tested for drought responses in experiment III …................................................................................................................................32 4. Analysis of variance for the effects of entry, date, block and their interaction on volumetric soil water content in experiments I, II and III………………………………………….53 5. The overall entry means of volumetric soil water content in experiments I, II and III during the drydown......................................................................................................................54 6. Analysis of variance for the effects of entry, date, block and their interaction, on turf quality (TQ), leaf firing (LF), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), live green cover (LGC) response during the drydown cycles for experiment I………………………....55 7. Comparison of mean turf quality amongst bermudagrass entries during the drydown of experiment I …...............................................................................................................56 8. Comparison of mean normalized difference vegetation index amongst bermudagrass entries during the drydown of experiment I…...........................................................................58 vi 9. Comparison
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