RELATIONSHIP OF SHOOT MORPHOLOGY BETWEEN SEEDLINGS AND ESTABLISHED TURF IN CREEPING BENTGRASS

Shoot morphological characteristics are important determinants of turf quality in creeping bentgrass. The objectives of this research were t o determine differences for tiller and stolen characteristics among cr eeping bentgrass cultivars and germplasms and compare these characteri stics between seedlings and established turf. Two experiments involvin g 10 and 15 entries were grown in controlled environment chambers and harvested as seedlings at 21, 35 and 49 d and 21, 28 and 35 d, respect ively. Nine and fifteen creeping bentgrass entries were grown in separ ate field experiments on sand-based golf greens and core samples were taken for subsequent measurements at 3 yr and 1 yr, respectively. Till er and stolen measurements included seedling tillers plant(-1) in the controlled environment; tillers m(-2) on established turf; and leaf nu mber, leaf width, plant height/stolen length, internode length, intern ode number, and stolen diameter in all experiments. The correlation co efficient for seedling tillers plant(-1) at 35 d between the two contr olled environment experiments was r = 0.835 and for tiller density bet ween the two field experiments was r = 0.930. There were differences a mong the creeping bentgrass entries for tiller number (9.7 to 20.2) an d internode length (20 to 54 mm) when measured at 35 d and for tiller density (67 to 227 x 10(3) m(-2)) in established turf. Correlation coe fficients between seedling tillers plant(-1) at 35 d and tiller number m(-2) in established turf ranged from r 0.701 to r = 0.826. There was also a high correlation for stolen internode length between seedling and established turf, with r values ranging from r = 0.725 to r = 0.94 8. These results document differences for tiller and stolen characteri stics between creeping bentgrass cultivars and germplasms and indicate the potential for plant improvement of these characteristics in creep ing bentgrass using 35-d-old seedlings in a controlled environment.