JANUARY 2019 SEEDWORLD.COM / 95 EXCERPTS FROM THIS ISSUE PRODUCTION TRAITS REMAIN CRITICAL IN BERMUDAGRASS BREEDING Improved texture, color, disease resistance, vigor and overall turf quality — all turfgrass breeders seek these traits. And, with water quality and supply problems increasing throughout the world, drought and heat tolerance traits have gained increased attention, particularly in the warm season grass category, says Brenda Dossey, manager of special products for Farmers Marketing Corporation in Arizona. But high-yielding, quality seed for the production end of the business still is one of the greatest challenges to warm-season grass breeders, she suggests. Dossey also notes several breeders are interested in cold tolerant varieties that help extend the growing season on warm- season turfgrasses and that extend their zones of adaptation further north into the transition zone. One of those varieties is Guymon, distributed by Farmers Marketing. It is a cold-tolerant Bermudagrass that is often used for low maintenance turf areas like roadsides, golf course roughs and parks or other turf areas where cold tolerance is important, such as the transition zone of the United States. “Seed companies are also interested in breeding new warm- season turf varieties that have good yields of high-quality seed to reduce production and supply problems. Good production on seed farms will help keep prices competitive, especially when compared to propagated varieties,” Dossey says. NuMex Sahara Bermudagrass, for example, continues to be a good seed producer, she notes. Summer and fall harvests of the turfgrass were reported good this past year. Farmers Marketing reports that in addition to the U.S., there is a great deal of interest in the grass overseas. It currently is in trials in Australia, Guam, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. The company is expecting to release several improved Bermudagrass varieties in the future. According to Dossey, breeders are working with breeding material featuring improved cold tolerance. Varieties for athletic and recreational usage are expected to be developed from this breeding material. “There does not appear to be any lack of new material to evaluate. However, we find that one of the greatest challenges to warm season turfgrass improvement remains in the area of seed production. It is critical for new varieties to have good yields of high-quality seed to be attractive to the producer while being priced competitively for the consumer. With good rates of production, proprietary warm season turfgrasses can be profitable for everyone from the grower to the retailer,” says Dossey. SW Precision Agriculture Starts With The Seed OPTICOUNT LAB PROVIDES: • Configurations for Soy, Corn, Wheat, Flower/Veg, Others • Recipe-based setup for rapid changeover • Integrated bench scale interface • Image and data archiving 804-514-9189 processvis.com 281-276-3600 satake-usa.com Counting is fast and reliable with visual verification. OptiCount provides seed-by-seed size, shape and color analysis giving you count and data output in less than 30 seconds. PROCESS V I S I O N S E E D S O L U T I O N S Backlit Count & Measure Data Color LAB Also available in automatic OptiCount OnLine