Dormant bermuda seeding....

16 years ago

Please read the following journal article: http://crop.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/46/4/1787

I did a lot of research prior to planting my bermuda seed (Princess 77) and all that I read, including NTEP studies, suggested that princess is the best looking seeded variety, but it is slow to green in the spring and has low cold tolerance. All this means to me is that is takes a little more TLC than the alternatives, which in central MS are St. Augustine, Centipede, and Zoyzia. I would love to have a perennial rye or TTTF lawn but it just wont work. St. Augustine is way too thick bladed for my taste and Centipede tends to look at little unhealthy and is difficult to fertilize correctly (although I did seed Tifblair centipede in my back yard where only partial sun exists). I spent a lot of time looking at Zoyzia and Bermuda before choosing Princess 77. After talking with some of my neighbors, they told me that Zoyzia can take all summer to repair and fills in very slowly. Since I like to chip golf balls in my yard, this did not seem like a good combo.

Anyway, I just thought I would share this article with those of you who care. Also, I've noticed that some suggest that lawn seed "marketing" is what drives a lot of people to buy and use certain seeds. In my case, it is VERY difficult to find high quality seeds locally. In fact, my choices in bermuda were: common (sahara) and princess.

JMHO (just my humble opinions).

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Comments (4)

dchall_san_antonio
16 years ago
THUD!

That was the sound of my forehead hitting the table after reading the first paragraph of that article. I know if I read more my eyeballs will start shooting blood.

The gist of the article is that scientists have determined that bermuda seed can start to sprout at soil temps of 60 degrees F rather than 80 degrees F. I've never heard of that, but we'll soon see because golfcourselawn has already seeded his lawn. Remember that it was other scientists that told us we needed 80 degree soil.

Please keep us posted. We are with you even if we sound skeptical or even negative.
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tak2w
16 years ago
Two years ago I seeded Triangle blend bermuda in April. I had to reseed in late May, because even with proper watering, most of my seed never came up. NC is probably not as hot as MS, so the OP may be okay seeding this early.

Also, the OP said he didn't plant Zoyzia in the shady areas because it doesn't repair itself very quickly. Believe me, Centipede does NOT repair itself very quickly either.
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It seems everyone's rudeness sensitivity has a different adjustment. If you want to see rude, flip on over to the Soils forum or the Organic Gardening forum where it is too common to gang up on one member and flat out call him stupid in so many words. On the corn gluten meal thread which ZS started a week or so ago, he said I had accused him of something but he would ignore it because he wanted to remain positive. I put the following into a message. Can anyone help me see where I might have made an accusation and one that had a negative note to it? Then ZS replied with the following Dchall_san_antonio wrote: > In real life it is rare to find someone who has had a good experience with CGM as a preemergent. I'm not sure if he was ignoring my request or replying to it. If anyone would care to help, please send me an email through my member page. I don't see it. It seems to me that ZS is egging us on by posting quotes that fly in the face of what has become common knowledge. When we try to explain either what is wrong with the quote or where the quote left off vital information or where the source quote was taken out of context, then the tone of the messages changes for the worse. To me it is clear who threw the first punch on this thread. Tiemco asked some questions and ZS bit his head off. I offered some clarification and got my head bit off. ZS if you prefer to read books and do not like to read what we have to say in this forum, then why are you here? I'm not saying there is no reason to be here, I'm simply asking why you are here? Are you here to offer us the benefit of what you have read? If that is the case then we will respond completely differently. Most people come here to find out if what they have read holds water. We have made that assumption with you. If we have been giving you advice when you were not looking for it, then that might be the root of the antagonism. Giving unwanted advice is considered rude to a lot of folks. Please let us know. You can establish your credentials based on what you read outside the forums and we'll leave it alone. I might add that disagreeable messages are one reason that forums lose membership. I've seen some really great people leave this forum simply because of one or two members who pestered them mercilessly. If you would not like to receive our thoughts and comments on your threads, it is easy enough to make that happen. Since I seem to be a catalyst for you, ZS, and since I don't see where my remarks are setting you off, then I'll stop replying with these thoughts and let you go.
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mscottw2 I did not catch the winterizer fertilizer part so disregard my balanced fertilizer recommendation from earlier. Just out of curiosity have you done a soil test recently? That would tell you if you need anything like P, K, and PH adjustment. My advice on those is apply once a year either in Fall for the last application, or the first Spring application. OK you got me a little confused with your questions of when to start what because you mention Halts, Urea, CGM, and Blood Meal. So I will try to sort things out best as I can, but are you organic, semi-organic, or synthetic organic? I am confused. If you want to do organic get the CGM down now as it is a pre-emergence and fertilizer. If you can afford it, just use CGM all year round as a fertilizer, I do on my personal lawn. That way you do not have to worry about timing of anything. Not sure about pre-emergence timing in your area Z9, it may still be to early for chemical treatment. Do you have a means to take soil temperature? If you do you are looking for temp of 55 degrees, or if Forsythia grows in your area you can tell by it being in full bloom. So here is the deal if using chemical pre-emergence wait until the soil reaches 55 or you see Forsythia in full bloom , if using CGM it needs to go down about a week or two earlier as it takes time for it to work One last word on pre-emergence. If you go the chemical route I would suggest looking for Dimension rather than Halts. Dimension last longer and targets a larger spectrum of weeds. Regardless of which you choose, make two applications spaced 8-weeks apart. Finally a few words on fertilizers. Yes I think it is OK for you to start now. Officially there are 5 weeks of winter left, but not for your area. Its possible you might get a light frost, but doubtful. It wonÂt hurt the grass, like I said just water if you hear a cold snap is coming. Next either go organic or synthetic organic. Like I said earlier just use CGM all year round if you can afford it, and then just forget about pre-m. Or use CGM for the first two applications, then switch to Soy Bean Meal rather than Blood Meal. For synthetic organic use a slow release urea product. Either start the year off or end the year off with a balanced urea like 20-5-10, and then use straight nitrogen for the rest of the growing season. Hope that helps, but I was confused.
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texas_weed
16 years ago
Well let me first say I am a golfaholic, so we share passions. Next Bermuda is undeniable the fastest self repairing grass known to man and why it is the first choice of all golf courses who have the option to grow it in fairways, rough, and tee boxes.

With that said TifSport is now becoming the standard for fairways, tee boxes, and rough. It fine texture deep color fast aggressive growth, cold tolerance, early green up makes it superior for the application.

When it comes to greens Bent grass is what the first choice is if possible. However once you move far enough south, Bent is not doable. In those cases TifEagle is now the standard for greens.

Ok now on to Princess and common seeded varieties. I somewhat object to the statement Princess is the most attractive. Personally I think a blend is more desirable that contains Princess. There is three huge drawback to Princess:

Last to green up
First to go dormant
Very susceptible to winter kill.

This restricts it to the Gulf Coast regions in the US. This is why I say a blend is preferable IMO like Triangle. One of the three seeds is likely to dominate and find its home.

Now to address germination temps. I personally do not care what one group of scientist say that Bermuda will germinate at soil temps of 60. Obliviously there will be some, but nothing compared to 70+. These guys are a minority.

My most trusted source of info is from OSU (sorry Ohio fans I mean Oklahoma State). OSU has the nations best research, test, and environmental labs there is. Every research developer and university send there sample to OSU environmental labs for testing of germination temps. Light, soil, and cold tolerance conditions. They basically have a 15,000/ft2 vault that they can control the temps to 1/10 of a degree, light, humidity, and moisture. The consensus of all the R&Âs that go there is 70+ degrees give the highest rate of germination.

Golfcourse donÂt let my comments discourage you, I do not think your early planting will fail. I just think you would have had better results if you had waited a while longer. Even though you planted early and may not get high germination rates, Princess is fairly aggressive and should fill in by August. My only concern is where you live, because if you get some extended cold periods below freezing, you could get quite a set back or loss with young shallow roots next winter.

Think about this if your budget can afford this. Over seed with something like Riviera, Mohawk, or both in late May.
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golfcourselawn
Original Author
16 years ago
TW

Is there a particular blend you recommend?
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Dormant bermuda seeding....

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Dormant bermuda seeding....

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dchall_san_antonio

tak2w

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