Response of Turf Bermudagrass Hybrids to Induced Drought Stress under Controlled Environment

Bermudagrass is a warm season turfgrass commonly grown in drought prone areas. Harnessing natural genetic variation available in germplasm is a principal strategy to enhance its resilience to drought stress. This study was carried out to assess the comparative performance of bermudagrass hybrids under drought conditions and their subsequent recovery following the drought period. A total of 48 hybrids including two commercial cultivars, ‘Tifway’ and ‘TifTuf’, were established under optimum growth conditions in the greenhouse and then subjected to drought stress by withholding irrigation for four weeks. The dry down experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with four replications. Turf color, visual quality, and active spectral re-flectance data were collected weekly and used to assess the health and vigor of the hybrids during progression of the drought stress for four weeks and through recovery after re-watering. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the hybrids for color, visual quality, and spectral vegetation indices. A multivariate analysis grouped the hybrids into a drought tolerant with full recovery after re-watering, moderately tolerant, and susceptible to extended drought stress without recovery. These results showed the prevalence of genetic diversity for drought tolerance that prove instrumental in the development of bermudagrass cultivars resilient to drought stress and improved water use efficiency.