Grand Prix Couch Grass
Sports Couches - Australia
New breeds of cool season turf come every year, but up until recently, new varieties of warm season turf were introduced less frequently. Breeding warm season turf in Australia has come a long way since 1965 when the late Rod Riley bred the first Australian Couch grass called Greenlees Park Couch.
As of Mid 2009 there are 19 active Plant Breeders rights applications for Cynodon (Couch), 15 varieties of Stenotaphrum (Buffalo), 5 varieties of Zoysia, 2 Queensland blue couch’s and 3 vegetative Kikuyu types with a majority of them being bred in Australia. Most will probably not make it in the commercial world of turf. For the turf type to make it turf farms need to decide to grow it, and a market must be created for the turf. Many of these varieties are successful often being sold for home and amenity turf.
Others have been successful in the sports turf market. On top of all these new varieties are the old favourites, like Wintergreen and Greenlees Park Couch. In this 3 part article we will look at many of the favourite warm season breeds and where they are available, plus the new ones and what it takes to breed these new grasses. In part 3, we will look at the first all purpose Australian Native Turf. Part one looks closely at sports couches.
Greenlees Park Couch Bowling Green
As a breeder of 8 varieties of turf, with 4 having been recently commercialised in Australia and one more established variety namely Sapphire Buffalo doing very well in both Australia and the USA, (and hopefully more in the future) I hope to give insight into what it takes to breed a new turf variety and what testing is needed to find where each turf works.
Naturally I think my varieties are wonderful, as would any breeder who has poured his heart and soul into their creation, but in the end it is the market place that decides. If a couch ends up being used in lots of sporting venues it has become successful, making breeders such as the Late Rod Riley, and Peter McMaugh very successful sports turf breeders. Many homes and amenity areas have been turfed with Sir Walter Buffalo, making Brent Redman very successful with his creation, as too have Sod Solutions with Palmetto.
Now there is a whole new generation of breeders coming through of which I include myself in this group. For the first time here is a showcase of all these turf types, with this issue focusing on sporting Couch types.
Wintergreen Couch
Couch
Couch turf is becoming very competitive, with many new varieties now about to hit the market place. From a breeders perspective, I find Couch cultivars very different and when breeding I choose the categories I wanted to bred for. Let’s compare say Tiff Eagle, Santa Ana, Greenlees Park Couch and Wintergreen as a way of understanding the 4 different groups I used for breeding. First we have the Greens couches such a Tiff Eagle, which only have one use, which is for putting greens and bowling greens. They have a very short internode length, and a super dense mat.
These thatch incredibly, and need specialised equipment to maintain them. Let’s call this a Putting green couch. Later we can list these categories and put each of the couches into them. Then we have the medium short internode grasses such as Santa Ana, that are sometimes well suited to climates such as Melbourne for normal use, but thatch way too much in places like Sydney and Brisbane unless they are mown short and regularly, such as high profile sporting venues.
Riley's Super Sport Couch
Let’s call these Specialist Sporting Couches. Then there are the mid range and longer internode groups such as Wintergreen that fit very well into most parts of Australia for many sporting facilities, as well as amenity areas, and for high profile sporting facilities. Let’s call these the All Rounders. Finally there are the ones that do really well in the warmer areas, that are again All Rounders, but go into dormancy quicker or grow too slow in cooler regions, and thus do not do so well in cooler areas such as Melbourne but absolutely love it in Sydney and Brisbane. Greenlees Park couch is an example of these. Let’s call them Warm All Rounders.
Just for the record, in breeding I wanted All Rounders, as the market is bigger for these, and breed one All Rounder and one Warm All Rounder. Not everyone will agree with my categories, but as a turf breeder this is what I used before deciding on breeding goals. In my research prior to breeding my 2 new couch varieties I put all the couch types into these 4 categories. I had a trial at my premises growing all the varieties except the Putting green couches. After talking to people I found that it is very hard to have a couch that works best in all climates, but there are some that do well in most, and some that need warmth, this is why I added the warm All Rounder category. Then there is the Couch market place. Some want very fast growing types that repair well from wear, yet still look good, some want density, and some want low cost for large development projects. That is why there is such a wide choice of Couch types.
Author: Todd Layt
