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TURFGRASS SCIENCE

Genetic Variation in Cynodon transvaalensis Burtt-Davy

^a Agronomy Dep., Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
^b Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State Univ., Stillwater, OK 74078
^c Dep. of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture, Oklahoma State Univ., Stillwater, OK 74078

^* Corresponding author (kkenworthy{at}ifas.ufl.edu)

Cynodon transvaalensis Burtt-Davy (African bermudagrass) is used as a turfgrass and in interspecific hybridization to produce turfgrass cultivars. Information is lacking on the magnitude of intra-specific genetic variation for traits related to turfgrass performance. A Design II mating population comprised of 320 F₁ plants (4 parental sets, 16 crosses set^–1_, 5 F₁ hybrids cross^–1) was used to estimate genetic parameters for 21 traits. The F₁ plants were evaluated in replicated field (13 traits) and greenhouse (8 traits) experiments in Stillwater, OK during 2002–2003. Genetic variation was detected for 17 of the 21 traits as indicated by significant (P < 0.05) differences among families within sets. Both additive and dominance genetic effects were detected for most of the 17 traits, but dominance effects usually prevailed over additive effects. Broad sense heritability estimates varied from 0.42 to 0.96. Population improvement via recurrent selection techniques would be possible but difficult as indicated by low levels of additive genetic variation for genetic color, raceme number, seed number, and percent seed set. Dominance effects might be exploited to select clonally propagated F₁ hybrid cultivars with enhanced sensor-rated color, density, turf quality, spring greenup, fall dormancy, percent living cover, raceme number, raceme length, number of florets per inflorescence, plant height, stolon length, number of internodes, internode length, and leaf length.

Abbreviations: H², Heritability • NDVI, Normalized difference vegetative indices • SE, Standard errors • S.E.H., Standard errors of Heritability • AOV, analysis of variance • NIR, near-infrared reflectance • PLC, percent living cover