kbg in georgia, tn, al, kansas!(& st. aug for lou)
I'm just posting an update for those interested in my experiment with KBG in GA.
I spoke with a few people today in different county extensions and basically I was speaking with people who didn't know didly about KBG or have any experience with it. I was frustrated by this page because nobody seemed to know why it says KBG is an option so I called up the author of that. He was in a meeting but I spoke with an assistant professor there and guess what. He said they now have a trial of KBG 'Midnight' going on at the Griffin turfgrass facility which is about 80 miles south of here. He said they planted in in May from plugs, not seed and it was way too early to publish any findings but he did say he was surprised at how it has performed so far. I think he was pretty amazed. It looks promising for it to persist although he said it was obviously not the climate KBG is best adapted to.
Originally I thought this could go one of two ways. I thought the grass could either just die in the heat like rye or poa annua OR squeak by and recouperate in the cooler weather only to repeat the process next year.
But I wasn't aware that the turf could in fact be weakened as a whole by heat stress and while it may do fine for the first year (he called it the honeymoon period) that it may not do as well the second or 3rd year. Even in the cool weather. My county extension tried to sell me on Centipede (no thanks) but she said that's what happens with fescue is that it may do fine the first year then goes kaput. Incidently the person I spoke to at my local ext told me that Bermuda doesn't need fertilizer every month and that it needs a great deal of P & K and to use something like 10-10-10 on it so I was scratching my head by the end of that phone call. This person said St. Augustine (not sure how that came up) doesn't grow well here because it can get too cold. She insisted none of the native grasses like buffalo or blue gramma & friends will grow here.
Going back to the asst professor, we talked about heat. I asked why it is hotter right now in Minnesota and more humid yet bluegrass is king there. And of course he said the heat doesn't last as long there. Then I asked why 110 degrees in southern california is a more suitable climate than here, especially since it's dry there. What I was told is that because it cools down so much there at night and is not as humid, that makes it possible.
So to sum this up, there is more to KBG making it through a summer. It doesn't just up and die as some have suggested. It may thin out and look like some of it has died only to come back full force in cooler weather. And you can't really tell how well it's going to do after one growing season. I also asked about the fine fescues and was told they need a protected spot. Such as shade from noon onward to persist.
I feel like it was a productive conversation and I have decided not to kill off my bermuda sod this year but instead to give it another year or two and see how things go. I still will overseed though with KBG (if it survives august) and I might also use Thermal Blue in the mix in the back yard if I can get a straight bag of thermal blue seed at a reasonable price. He said it reportedly has rust problems though. He told me not to hydroseed but instead to use a broadcast spreader for more accurate placement of the seed.
So if you were hoping for some difinitive answers on whether this KBG will work in the northern south, you're not going to get any this year. Of course if it only lasts a year or two before you have to reseed from scratch, that's a viable option if you want to spend the money on it.
The latest on my stand is that it's still green but losing a lot of territory to Bermuda. There is a rabbit eating grass there on a nightly basis too which isn't helping my cause.
yankee_in_va
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