The Effects of Temperature on Germination of Eleven Festuca Cultivars.

Abstract

Many studies have shown that water potential at planting affects the germination rate and final germination of Festuca cultivars. Limited information is available about the extent of variability in temperature-dependence of germination among different Festuca cultivars. Our objective was to study germination at five temperatures for a wide range of Festuca cultivars. Festuca seeds were screened for germination during 28 days in polyethylene growth pouches held at constant temperatures of 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30°C. The germination percentage significantly (p < 0.05) increased as the temperature increased from 10 to 15°C, when averaged across the cultivars, and decreased thereafter. The cultivar "Clemfine" tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) had the greatest germination percentage, and "Arctared" red fescue (Festuca rubra L.) had the least when averaged across the five temperatures. Conversely, the average time to germination (A tg ) was greatest at 10°C and least at 30°C. Reaching a germination level of 80% or more of the seeds required 14 days at 10°C, 9 d at 15°C, 8 d at 20°C, and 7 d at 25 or 30°C. Base

Moderate Salinity Does Not Affect Germination of Several Cool- and Warm-Season Turfgrasses

“…Red fescue Dawson showed significantly lower germination in both experiments compared to all other cool‐season grasses, with the exception of tall fescue Southeast in experiment 1 (Table 3). Palazzo and Brar (22) found similar lower germination success for Dawson when compared to other fescue grasses.…”

Fine fescues: A review of the species, their improvement, production, establishment, and management

“…Fine fescues generally require between 5 to 12 d after seeding to germinate (Christians et al., 2017; Kim, 2013; Kim & Park, 2010; Palazzo & Brar, 1997), which is intermediate vs. other turf species but faster than Kentucky bluegrass (Pommer, 1972). The contrasting seedling vigor of Kentucky bluegrass and slender creeping red fescue results in reduced Kentucky bluegrass establishment when these species are planted together in seed mixtures (Larsen, Andreasen, & Kristoffersen, 2004a).…”

“…Fine fescues have been shown to germinate in conditions as cool as 2.6 °C (Larsen & Bibby, 2005). Although the average time to germination decreased as temperatures increased from 10 to 30 °C, the optimum seed zone temperature was reported to be 15 °C, which had the highest mean final germination percentage compared with 10, 20, 25, and 30 °C (Palazzo & Brar, 1997). The Association of Official Seed Analysts principles and procedures recommends a laboratory temperature of 15–25 °C for fine fescue seed germination tests (Association of Official Seed Analysts, 2016).…”

Evaluation of seedling emergence and relative DNA content under dry soil conditions of wild Festuca arundinacea populations collected in Iran

“…A high correlation coefficient between SVI and the other traits in our work, particularly at 40% FC, indicated that it could be used as a selection criterion for improving low soil water tolerance at germination and emergence in cool season grasses. In cool-season grass species, quick germination depends on factors related with genotypes, germination environment and seed characters (Palazzo and Gurdarshan 1997;Gazanchian et al 2006;Mut and Akay 2010). Moreover, it is well known that rapid and complete germination are important during the establishment of grass species (Larsen and Bibby 2004; Mut and Akay 2010).…”