2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Turfgrass managers are using reclaimed water as an irrigation resource because of the decreasing availability and increasing cost of fresh, potable water. Therefore, it is important to develop, select, and utilize salinity tolerant turfgrass cultivars. Bermudagrass is a warm-season turfgrass that has relatively high salinity tolerance, but information is needed on the relative performance of both common bermudagrass and interspecific hybrid bermudagrass cultivars and experimental selections. The objective of this study was to evaluate 10 common bermudagrass seeded cultivars and experimental selections and 7 clonal-type bermudagrasses for salinity tolerance using several objective, non-destructive measurement tools. Experiments were performed under a controlled environment with six replications for each treatment. Bermudagrasses were exposed to four salinity levels (1.5, 15, 30, and 45 dS m^-1) consecutively using a sub-irrigation system. Measurements included the subjective human measurements of turf quality and leaf firing, as well as the objective, non-destructive measurements of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), digital image analysis (DIA), visual rating with a smartphone app (VR), and dark green color index (DGCI). Correlation analysis showed that the parameters LF, TQ, NDVI, DGCI, and DIA were all highly correlated with one another, indicating that they can be useful as for measurement of relative salinity tolerance among bermudagrass cultivars.