Subproject 1. Improving the leaf texture, uniformity and playing quality of winter hardy creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera).
‘Nordlys’ creeping bentgrass is outstanding in winter hardiness. Its major drawback is a variable leaf texture. The objective of this subproject is to develop new and more uniform varieties based on ‘Nordlys’ germplasm. The trial was established at Bioforsk Øst Løken. About 1000 plants from Nordlys were established in the field in 2007. Density, fineness of leaves and number of inflorescences in the sowing year were recorded in August and September 2007. Plants for four synthetic populations were selected among the plants with high winter survival, narrow leaf-width and good density, based on growth habit and earliness. The plants were planted in 20 cm pots and around 26 June the pots were set in isolation chambers for production of Syn1 seed. The seed was harvested in September and sent to Graminor for threshing, cleaning and further seed increase and testing.
At the end of 2008, suspicions arose that the seed source used in this project was not Agrostis stolonifera var. ‘Nordlys’. In 2009 it was concluded that what had been believed to be ‘Nordlys’ was an unknown source of Agrostis capillaris. This also created huge problems for commercial seed production of ‘Nordlys’”, which had used the same seed source as the project. However, this unknown seed source has been used in several green trials with good results. We will therefore continue the work with the four selected synthetic populations of Agrostis capillaris. Testing of this material can start in 2011.
In 2009 Graminor also established a new seed multiplication field of ‘Nordlys’ with the aim of weeding out Agrostis capillaris plants and selecting plants with a more uniform morphology, which was the original goal of this subproject.
Subproject 2. Preliminary testing of advanced breeding materials on an experimental green.
The objective of this subproject is to test eight candidate varieties of chewings fescue (Festuca rubra ssp commutata) and four candidate varieties of colonial bentgrass (Agrostis capillaris) obtained from Graminor in a green trial. The trial was established at Bioforsk Øst Apelsvoll`s experimental putting green in 2007. In the winter season 2008-2009 the trial was severely damaged by snow and ice and most of the plants trial died. Because of these problems, the trial was re-established in 2009. For chewings fescue, most of the advanced breeding materials (candivars) had good plant cover, acceptable winter survival and relatively high tiller density. None of them had major attacks of ‘in season diseases’. ‘LøRc 0008’ had the best score for overall visual merit and visual merit in the spring, summer and autumn of the first green year (2008), but the differences from other varieties were not significant (except when compared with ‘Center’ in the spring). The reference ‘Center’ had the highest incidence of winter damage. ‘Center’ and the candivar ‘LøRc 0010’ had the best scores for overall visual merit in the sowing year 2007 and re-sowing year 2009. For colonial bentgrass, the reference ‘Jorvik’ had the lowest score for overall visual merit and visual merit in the first green year (2008). This was due to ‘Jorvik’ having the highest incidence of winter damage. ‘Jorvik’ had the highest score for visual merit on average for the sowing year 2007 and the re-sowing year 2009. Compared with ‘Leirin’, the other reference variety in this trial, most of the advanced breeding materials had higher scores for tiller density, leaf fineness and colour, but these differences were not significant.
After two tough winters 2007-08 and 2008-09 and after re-sowing in 2009, the results showed that several of the advanced breeding materials (candivars) from Graminor have potential as varieties for putting greens in northern Scandinavia. 2010 will tell us more about the candivars.
