Bahiagrass Breeding Program

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Bahiagrass Breeding
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Bahiagrass

• well adapted
• grows on poor soil
• drought tolerance
• persistent
• forage/sod/seed

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Bahiagrass-Breeding

• Paspalum notatum
• most P. notatum are apomictic
• plant breeding limited to sexual types

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Bahiagrass Varieties

• Diploid
• Pensacola
• Tifton 9
• Sand Mountain
• RRPS Cycles 0, 4, 9, 23
• PICA Cycles 2, 3, 4
• Tetraploid
• Argentina
• Paraguay 22
• Tifton 7
• Claudina types
• Quesenberry/Smith lines

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DIPLOID bahiagrass
Ona Light Study
Forage yields with bahiagrass resulted in winter
harvests yielding slightly more than half the
peak yield harvested in early summer. This
resulted in approximately a 6-fold increase for
bahiagrass (Sinclair et al., 1997).
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Quincy Light Study
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Tiller number and crown area for 1999 greenhouse
grown bahiagrass seedlings.
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Crown area of field-grown bahiagrass Recurrent
Restricted Phenotypic Selection plants in 2000
and 2001, at the NFREC-Quincy, FL.
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October C069, C476, C947 increase, and
C239 decrease January C067, C482, C929
increase, and C23ns
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significant height (and flowering) effects
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approximately a 50 decrease in crown spread
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Quincy Light Study

• later cycles were less daylength sensitive
• plant growth shifted to upright growth during
  long days
• some individual plants were not affected by
  daylength
• plants varied in cold tolerance

extended vs. natural light
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Envirotron Light Study
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Cold Tolerance December 2002
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Pensacola
Argentine
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Cycle 9
Cycle 4
Cycle 23
Cycle 18
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Cold tolerant selections
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COLD TOLERANT BAHIAGRASS
LEFT Argentine is cold-sensitive damaged at 200 F
RIGHT FL67 is cold-tolerant with approximately
30 leaf damaged.
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Anatomical exam for cold tolerance
4th Leaf Lamina
Small lacuna thick cell walls
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Ona plots on 7 Jan. 2003
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PICA Cycle 4 spaced-plants at Ona on 7 Jan. 2003
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TETRAPLOID Bahiagrass
Tifton 7-not released
Q4188 and Q4205 Sexual Tetraploids
Q4188 has short, stout, ascending rhizomes erect
growth habit red-purple basal leaf sheaths and
purple anthers and stigmas.
Q4205 has short rhizomes, upright growth habit,
red-purple leaf sheaths, white stigmas, and is
100 sexual. It has a visually recessive marker
for white stigmas.
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Trifurilin Orylazin Colchicine
Doubled Diploids
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Dollar spot fungusSclerotinia homoeocarpa
Bahiagrass cultivar disease severity ratings in
2001 and 2002 at NFREC, Marianna.
Rating based on 0 to 100, where 0 no visible
leaf area damaged to 100 whole plant dead.
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Other plant breeding considerations
Mole cricket tolerance
Plant morphology
Turf characteristics