Relative performance of lawn grasses under different light intensities

Four fine textured grasses namely Bermuda (Cynodon dactylon L. Pers.) cv. Calcutta doob, Improved Bermuda-1, Improved Bermuda-2, Kentucky blue (Poa pratensis L.) and five coarse textured grasses viz. St. Augustine-1 (Stenotaphrum secundatum Walt, Kuntze), St. Augustine-2 (Stenotaphrum dimidiatum Brogn.), Bahia (Paspalum notatum Flugge), Kikuyu (Pennisetum clandestinum Hochst. ex Chiov.) and Bedbug grass (Digitaria spp. Haller) were evaluated under four levels of light intensities viz., full sunlight, 40, 30 and 20 per cent of incident light to assess their relative performance and find out their suitability for raising lawn in open and shaded situations under Bangalore condition. For creating artificial shade over the experimental plots, UV stabilized agro shade nets allowing 20, 30 and 40 per cent light were fixed at a height of 45 cm above the ground level over the experimental plots. The experiment was conducted following a split plot design with three replications taking light intensity as main treatment and grass species as sub treatment. Several growth parameters such as fresh weight of clipping yield, leaf area, verdure fresh weight, growth rate of shoots, chlorophyll content and uniformity were determined. Lawn grasses responded to various light intensities differently with respect to these characters. Based on the performances, Improved Bermuda-I was observed to be the most suitable one among all the grasses tried recording low clipping yield, leaf area and growth rate of shoots with high verdure fresh weight and chlorophyll content which formed a dense, compact and highly uniform turf under open condition. It was also found tolerant to reduced light forming of acceptable turf even under 20 per cent light. Among coarse textured grasses Bed bug grass was found superior with a dense and uniform turf under open condition while the performance of St. Augustine and Bahia grasses were found highly satisfactory under all levels of reduced light intensity Kikuyu was not found suitable for lawn either for open or shaded situations