| There is a new revolution in warm season turf breeding with the introduction of new Kikuyu turf types, a new native turf, and the rise of Empire Zoysia as a sports and amenity alternative. In parts one and two we looked at Couch varieties and Queensland Blue Couch, now it is time to think outside the box. Couch types have been the mainstay of the sports turf industry, but with the advent of these new turf types, its time to consider alternatives.
The new Kikuyu turf types have a lot to offer the sports turf industry. Common Kikuyu has a lot of faults which these new ones go a long way to fixing. For a start Kikuyu is often shunned because it has a nasty habit of self seeding everywhere, causing problems for bush land, wetlands, and grasslands. The new types have been bred to be sterile. Common Kikuyu is also a dog’s breakfast of a grass. When you buy common Kikuyu you receive many different Kikuyu strains, some good, but most are poor compared to the newly bred alternatives. The new Kikuyu types have real benefits compared to the common form. The two new ones are Kenda and Village Green. Both have far more Rhizomes than the common form, making them much better at recovering from wear. I recently tested these two varieties and common Kikuyu to see exactly how they differed when it came to the quantity of Rhizomes. I grew five 200mm pots of each variety for 9 months. The Rhizomes were then measured for length in each pot and averaged for each variety. Kenda had the most with an average of 194cm per pot, Village Green had 127 cm per pot and the common form only had 34cm per pot. This has huge implications for sporting facilities. Kikuyu has some benefits over couch in that they are faster to recover from wear and they have much better winter colour. They also can cope better with poor maintenance, that’s why so many council ovals use Kikuyu. Now that there are good varieties on the market, I believe there will be much more Kikuyu used in sporting facilities. I see a time in 5 to 10 years when it will be very hard to buy common Kikuyu, just like it is almost impossible now to buy common Couch or common Buffalo turf rolls.
Village Green
The cultivar is actually called RK19, but it is marketed under the brand of Village Green. This grass has far more Rhyzomes than the common form, as you can see from the research above. It also grows quicker across the ground, greatly increasing its recovery from wear compared to the common form. Kikuyu turf rolls are often very poor and break easily, but village green helps solve that problem as the extra stolons and Rhizomes help it hold together better. The deeper more prolific Rhizomes also help with drought tolerance. This grass is sterile, so it will not produce seed, although under some rare circumstances even generally male sterile Kikuyu could produce a seed. Also it is possible that seed from other Kikuyu could blow in. Still, the sterile nature of this Kikuyu will reduce the bad press that Kikuyu gets. As far as aesthetics, it still looks like normal Kikuyu when mown. As far as winter colour, Kikuyu is generally good and Village Green seems to be as good as normal Kikuyu. Having not mown this grass myself, I can not say whether it needs more mowing or not. Village Green was bred by Future Turf Pty Ltd.
Kenda
The cultivar is called KIK203, and is marketed under the name of Kenda. I was the breeder of this grass. As a former turf grower, I know the pain of not being able to get Kikuyu to roll up. In breeding this grass I aimed for much stronger rhizomes and stolons, which was certainly achieved. The grass is also ready quicker on the farm. In the pot trial, Kenda was the only grass that had Rhizomes coming out the bottom of the pots. These numerous deep Rhizomes have greatly increased Kenda’s ability to handle heavy wear and prolonged drought. When mown, Kenda looks surprisingly fine leafed, and as it is one strain of grass it looks much more uniform than common Kikuyu. Feed back from growers has been excellent. In breeding trials we grew this turf next to common Kikuyu and two other Kikuyu turf types which were not commercialised. The Kenda grew in much faster than the others but remarkably when left unmown, the Kenda did not get as tall as the other types. It seems to grow more horizontally rather than vertically. We did not find differences in mowing frequencies compared to the other Kikuyu. Kikuyu, like Couch, needs regular mowing or it will get untidy and thin out, although Kenda does seem to be denser than the common form when left unmown. Kenda appears denser than the common form in general, providing another reason to use Kenda instead of common Kikuyu or couch for that matter. Kenda is sterile which should make councils very happy, as common Kikuyu seed can blow in the wind and germinate kilometres from its original spot. In breeding, I had the choice of 8 sterile Kikuyu turf types, but Kenda was far superior, so buying a Kikuyu just because it’s sterile should not be the only reason to choose that grass, it should also be for all the other benefits. As far as winter colour goes it was better than the common Kikuyu last year at our farm, but that is not enough to say for certain it has better winter colour. One interesting thing I noted in the final breeding trial was that the common form and the other two tested varieties had a little Kikuyu yellows appear over summer, and the Kenda showed no signs of it at all. If Kenda does show better long term resistance to Kikuyu Yellows disease, this has huge implications for the Mid and North Coast of NSW, and even Southern Queensland. You really need to see for yourself how much better Kenda is compared to common Kikuyu, so as a special offer through this magazine, I would be happy to send out free cell grown plants of Kenda for people to trial. Either email Ozbreed at info@ozbreed.com.au or phone 1300 25 2000. Once you see the difference, it would be very hard to use common Kikuyu again.
Zoysia turf is finally becoming accepted in Australia. Up until now it has mainly been Empire sold in this country, accept for very small quantities of a couple of other types in north Queensland, but, now there is also a new Native Zoysia, from a different species.
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Empire Turf.
Empire is quickly getting a reputation for a tough, drought tolerant grass that needs much less mowing that all other types. A three year research program proved that Empire needs a third the mowing of Kikuyu, half that of Couch. Buffalo needs 31.8% more mowing than Empire. This study was conducted at two sites with a total of six replicated plots for each turf type. Another important fact about Empire is that in two university studies it has shown to need less fertiliser than other grasses. It is particularly well suited to humid Queensland where it has been used successfully right up to the beach on the gold coast, and is rated the best grass for Northern Queensland by many growers. In Sydney it has been used successfully by the RTA on numerous sites as a roadside grass, and in parks by councils. It was even used by one council to patch up bare areas in front of gold posts, where it performed better than Kikuyu. Its drought tolerance is probably the reason why it has sold well in Perth, and in Country Victoria. In Melbourne the grass works really well provided it is installed from September through to April. In cold climates it is slow to establish in Winter. Other research proved it was the best grass for Erosion control, where it strengthened the soil 48%, compared to Couch 3.2% and Kikuyu 9.7%. Empire responds well to over sowing. Empire, a Zoysia japonica was bred by an employee of Sod Solutions in Brazil. In the USA Empire is widely used as a golf course rough grass, requiring a fraction of the maintenance of Couch, and on some courses as a fairway as well. In Darwin it is often used on spots fields.
Nara
Finally the day has arrived in Australia. We now have a true Australian native turf. Zoysia macrantha ‘Mac03’ marketed under the brand name of Nara was developed by me at Ozbreed. Zoysia macrantha only occurs in Australia and it generally grows along the coast. Nara is presently the only all purpose Native Turf available in Australia. There is only one other Native Turf, and that is called Dryarna, but it is only grown for drainage channels because it merely survives in or next to shallow water. Dryarna is not suitable for general turf areas. Nara is very different to common Zoysia macrantha and it took almost a decade to breed. Nara grows two to three times faster than common Zoysia macrantha, and even grows faster than Empire Zoysia. The reason why people do not grow the common form of Zoysia macrantha, is that it is too slow, and it would take two years to grow a crop, whilst Nara can take as little as five to seven months. It does need more mowing than Empire, but less than Couch, Kikuyu and Buffalo. Since Nara is quicker to cover and establish than other Zoysia, it has great potential as a sports turf, furthermore early tests have shown that it wears very well. Nara native turf will be widely available in January this year in Queensland, NSW and Victoria. It will be another year before it is available in Perth.
Sure Nara is a native turf, but best of all it needs no different maintenance regime to other lawns. It can be mown short or long and it can handle a wide array of Herbicides, basically anything you can use on couch generally works for Nara. Zoysia macrantha is naturally a very drought tolerant grass, and grows in some inhospitable places. Nara has much better Winter Colour than Couch, but will brown off quicker than Kikuyu, and some of the Buffalo types, but compared to other Zoysia types, it is more winter active. In the Northern hemisphere Zoysia has to go dormant to handle the extreme cold, where as our native type has not developed to handle this, which is probably why Nara is more winter active. This year we will test Nara in some colder areas of the USA to see how much cold it can handle, whilst closer to home we do expect it to survive quite well in climates like Canberra. So far the feed back from the USA about Nara has been positive, so who knows, maybe our native grasses will make their mark around the world. Common Zoysia macrantha is very salt tolerant. In tests, Nara had much more salt tolerance than Empire, which is known to have excellent salt tolerance compared to most other grasses. When we tested Nara compared to a selection of common Zoysia macrantha types in breeding, it had salt tolerance at the mid to lower end of the species, not as high as some, but still much higher than Couch, Buffalo, and Empire. This is only important because we don’t want people thinking it can handle growing in sea water, however growing close to the beach, or on waterfront properties is not a problem. Another interesting fact about Nara, which I have also observed in some other Zoysia macrantha types is that it seeds early in Spring in a burst, and does not seed much if at all for the rest of the year. This is a distinct advantage, as Nara will only need more mowing in early spring to remove seed head, compared to Couch and Buffalos that will need mowing to remove seed head at many times of the year.
Think of the good will created by a golf course, or a council park using a native turf instead of an exotic grass. When organisations like this use plants they are mainly native ones. Now people who want to can do the same with turf. I know of developments have had trouble getting through council because there was no native turf available. One such large development has already specified Nara for all its turf, as this allowed the development to pass much easier through council. Another benefit to using Nara is all the good press that can be achieved by using a native green solution. To appreciate how good this new native turf is, you need to see it for yourself. If anyone would like to try it Ozbreed is happy to send out free cell grown plants of Nara. Either email Ozbreed at info@ozbreed.com.au or phone 1300 25 2000.
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