What Makes Kentucky

Kentucky bluegrass (Poapratensis L.) is the most widely used cool-season turfgrass in the United States (8). Along with perennial ryegrass (Lol iumperenne L.); Ken-tucky bluegrass is commonly used on athletic fields grown in cool-season climates. Perennial ryegrass has been reported by Shearman and Beard (3, see references, page 58) to be the most wear-tolerant species and rough bluegrass (Poa trivialis L.) to be the least tolerant of the seven cool-season species they evaluated. Kentucky bluegrass ranked second to perennial ryegrass in terms of overall wear tolerance. Wear evaluations in Kentucky bluegrass have been conducted (1, page 58). How-ever, the number of studies investigating wear mechanisms important in this species (plant factors) is limited. This information would be valuable in selecting and breed-ing wear-tolerant genotypes. Various anatomical and morphological plant charac-teristics have been identified to be important in wear tolerance in evaluations conducted across species of cool-season turfgrass. Cool-season species with superior wear tolerance have been associated with plant characteristics, includ-ing greater total cell wall content (thicker cell walls)