Rl. Stanley, RESPONSE OF TIFTON-9 PENSACOLA BAHIAGRASS TO HARVEST INTERVAL AND NITROGEN RATE, Proceedings - Soil and Crop Science Society of Florida, 53, 1994, pp. 80-81
Pensacola bahigrass (Paspalum notatum Flugge) is the most widely grown
warm-season perennial pasture grass in Florida. It is very tolerant t
o a wide range of management practices and is persistent under unfavor
able conditions such as low fertility and heavy grazing pressure. Tift
on-9 is an improved cultivar of Pensacola bahiagrass with a more uprig
ht growth habit and greater forage production potential than Pensacola
. Experiments were conducted to determine the response of Tifton-9 to
nitrogen rate and harvest interval (HI) and to determine the interacti
ons of N and rate x HI. A N rate experiment contained N rates of 0,84,
168, 336, and 672 kg ha-1 total N for the season in split application
s at 4 wk intervals. Forage production increased as N rate increased w
ith a lower response above the 336 rate. In a second experiment, forag
e was harvested at 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 wk intervals with N rate constant
at 336 kg ha-1 N. Highest forage production for the season was at the
8 week HI. Relative production for the 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 week HI was
.35,.53,.81, 1.00, and.75 respectively. Although forage production was
much lower with a 1 or 2 week HI, stand of the sward was not reduced.
A third experiment was a factorial with 2 N rates (168, 336 kg ha-1)
and 3 HI (2, 4, 8 wk). Relative forage production for HI/N rates of 2/
168, 2/336, 4/168, 4/336, 8/168, 8/336 was.35, .53, .52, .76, .84, 1.0
0 respectively. These data can be useful to livestock producers in dev
eloping forage utilization systems to maximize nitrogen efficiency.