Due to fungicide restrictions, harsh winters and the light/temperature conditions at high latitudes, turfgrass variety testing in the usa, uk or central Europe has limited relevance for the Nordic countries. Thus, trials comparing 42 varieties of seven turfgrass species/subspecies on usga greens at two sites in each of the two major climatic zones in the Nordic countries (Fig. 1) were initiated in 2007. As the trial at Östra Ljungby had to be closed in 2009, these preliminary results are mainly from Landvik (zone 1) and Apelsvoll and Keldnaholt (zone 2):
The first winter of the project discriminated strongly among species and varieties. On average for varieties within species, chewings fescue (FRC) and slender creeping red fescue (frt) had significantly better winter survival than colonial (acap), velvet (acan) and creeping bentgrass (as), perennial ryegrass (lp) and rough-stalked meadow grass (pt) in both zones. In zone 2 the fescues were at the top for overall turfgrass quality, only accompanied by acan at Apelsvoll and pt at Keldnaholt. The ranking for overall quality in zone 1 was acan > as> frc=frt>acap>pt>lp. Different varieties of acap have to be used in zones 1 and 2. ‘Aberroyal’ and ‘Green Speed’ had higher scores than the control variety ‘Jorvik’ in zone 1, while the control variety ‘Leirin’ was unsurpassed in zone 2.
The control variety ‘Villa’ of acan had better winter survival and overall score than ‘Vesper’ and ‘Legendary’ at Apelsvoll. Differences among these varieties were small at Landvik and Keldnaholt. Within AS, ‘Declaration’, ‘Runner’ and ‘cy-2’, appeared to be good alternatives to the control variety ‘Independence’ in zone 1. ‘cy-2’ performed well even in zone 2, though it was clearly inferior to ‘Norwegian type’ (previously called ‘Nordlys’; really a mix of as and acap) as regards winter survival at Apelsvoll. ‘Musica’ had higher overall scores than any other frc in zone 1 and at Apelsvoll in zone 2. Other frc better than the control variety ‘Center’ in zone 1 were ‘Barswing’, ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘Margret’. ‘lørc0215’ had the best score at Keldnaholt. Within FRT, ‘Finesto’, ‘Viktorka’ and ‘Amarone’ had high scores in zone 1. ‘Viktorka’ and ‘Amarone’ were among the best even at Keldnaholt, while the control variety ‘Cezanne’ was unsurpassed at Apelsvoll. Within lp, ‘dp17-2147’ was somewhat more promising than the other varieties at both Landvik and Apelsvoll. Within pt, there were small differences between ‘Qasar’ and ‘Race Horse’ in both zones.
Fig. 1: Division of Scandinavia into two climate zones. The trial sites are indicated with blue stars.
Photos 1-3: Variety greens at Apelsvoll in October 09 (left), Keldnaholt in August 09 (right), and Landvik in September 09 (centre). (Photos: Bjørn Molteberg, Gudni Thorvaldsson and Trygve S. Aamlid, respectively)
