Information is needed to determine if adequate turf quality can be maintained over several growing seasons when grasses are irrigated from the subsurface. A study was conducted in Las Cruces, NM, from 2005 to 2008 to investigate the performance of onebermudagrass blend and ten warm-season species and varieties under subsurface drip irrigation. Plots were mowed at 7.5 cm, irrigated at 90% ETo and fertilized to prevent nutrient stress. Visual ratings were taken monthly from March 2005 to June 2008 todetermine turf quality, spring green up, and fall color retention. Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices (NDVI) were collected monthly from March 2007 through June 2008. When quality data were averaged over the 4 years, seashore paspalum ‘SeaDwarf,’‘Sea Spray,’ and zoysiagrass ‘De Anza’ had the best performance and sideoats grama ‘Vaughn’ the worst during the summer. The study showed that inland saltgrass ‘A138’ achieved the fastest spring green-up, whereas De Anza was the slowest. SeaDwarf stayed green the longest in the fall, while Vaughn was the first cultivar to lose color and go dormant. The correlation between visual turfgrass quality and NDVI was significant (P < 0.001) but not very strong, yielding a correlation coefficient of r =0.54.
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