Research You Can Use Heat and Drought Performance of Texas Bluegrass Hybrid Turf Does this new turfgrass live up to the hype?

Texas bluegrass hybrid turf, or "hybrid bluegrass " for short, is the latest turfgrass to enter the scene in the ongoing quest for more heat-tolerant, drought-resistant cool-season turfgrass. Hybrid bluegrass is a genetic cross between native Texas bluegrass (Poa arachnifera Torr.) and Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.). It looks a lot like Kentucky bluegrass and could potentially be used for golf course tees, fairways, and roughs in areas where cool-season grasses are grown. Early reports claimed that hybrid bluegrass had greater heat tolerance and drought resistance than other cool-season grasses (Read et al., 1999), but because it is a relatively new turfgrass, research has been limited. Our research, consisting of both growth chamber and field studies, investigated the heat and drought per-formance of hybrid bluegrass in com-parison to turf-type tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. GROWTH CHAMBER STUDY In the growth chamber study, which included Thermal Blue hybrid blue-grass, Dynasty tall fescue (Festuca arun-dinacea Schreb.), and Apollo Kentucky bluegrass, we established the grasses in lysimeters (Figure 1), split them into four groups, and subjected them to 48 days of one of the following treatments: 1) high temperature (95°F day/77°F night) and well watered (100 % evapo-transpiration [ET] replacement; 2) optimal temperature (72°F day/60°F night) and well watered; 3) high tem-perature and drought (60 % ET replace-ment); 4) optimal temperature an