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As a group, the Compact Midnight types
remained above a quality of six for longer
than the Common as well as the BVMG
types, but also received more water than
the Compact America and Mid-Atlantic
groups (Fig. 3).
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
WATER APPLIED AND VISUAL
QUALITY
Ideally, cultivars or groups that require
the least water would also have the highest
visual quality. Those relationships are illustrated in the scatter biplot in Fig. 6, in
which cultivars with the most favorable
characteristics appear in the lower right section. In general, irrigation applications
were greater in bluegrasses with poorer
quality (Fig. 6, upper left section). This
pattern probably resulted from improved
cultivars with morphological properties
that both enhanced turf quality and reduced evapotranspiration (water use). Such
improved properties include compact or
dwarfed growth habits, horizontal leaf orientation, and greater shoot density. All 15
44 SportsTurf | October 2013
Figure 6. WATER APPLIED TO KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS CULTIVARS AND HYBRID BLUEGRASSES versus average visual quality ratings on a 1-9 scale with 9=optimum and 1=brown turf.
Data were averaged over the periods June 19 - Oct. 1, 2007 (105 days) and June 22 - Oct. 7,
2009 (108 days).
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