One of the principle factors that limits the areas to which seeded bermudagrass can be adapted is low temperature. Therefore, increasing the winter tolerance of seeded bermudagrass cultivars has been a goal of turfgrass breeders for many years. Design of an efficient breeding method for developing cultivars with increased tolerance to cool and freezing temperatures could be enhanced by having heritability estimates for cold tolerance traits. Additionally, the identification of correlated traits can be useful in improvement of cultivar development. Heritability estimates for winter tolerance can be obtained from cold treatments imposed artificially or from observations made in the field. Parental clones and their respective polycross half-sib families were established in a randomized complete block design with four replications in 2004 in Lexington, KY. Differences in spring green up and fall dormancy measured in 2006 were detected between genotypes within the progeny and parental groups. These same lines were subjected to 15 replications of a freezing treatment in a freeze chamber. Differences in spring green up and fall dormancy were detected between genotypes within the progeny and parental groups. Differences in freeze response were also detected using the artificial freeze treatment. Broad-sense heritabilities were estimated to be 0.895 and 0.573 for spring green-up and fall dormancy respectively. Narrow-sense heritability estimates were found to be 0.885 and 0.265 for these same traits. These results indicate that this population could be improved for cold tolerance using phenotypic recurrent selection. Freeze response was found to be positively correlated to winter hardiness and seed yield in the parent group.

Nineteen bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.) cultivars were evaluated for field emergence, establishment rate, traffic tolerance, post-harvest seed coating, germination velocity, and total germination under varying temperature regimes. Two cultivars were evaluated for thermal modeling, day/night temperature fluctuations, day lengths, and effects of fluridone on speed and percentage of total germination. The effect of cultivar was highly significant for visible field germination, time to 100% cover, and traffic tolerance in both 2010 and 2011. Riviera was the slowest or equivalent to the slowest for visible germination. Casino Royale was the fastest or equivalent to the fastest for visible germination. Yukon was the slowest to reach 100% cover in both years, while Sovereign was the quickest for 2010. Riviera and Sovereign were equivalent for the quickest to cover in 2011. Riviera and Yukon ranked highest and lowest, respectfully, in tolerance to simulated athletic traffic. There were no significant effects (p>0.05) of post-harvest seed coatings. There were highly significant differences among cultivars in germination velocity and total germination when grown under 20-year average day/night temperatures representing data from Lexington, KY on 15 May to 1 August in 15 day intervals. Evaluations for day/night temperature regimes, day length regimes, and effects of fluridone on the germination speed and percentage were also completed on Riviera and Casino Royale. Day/night regimes of 35/20, 35/25, and 40/25 degrees Celsius were evaluated. Significant differences (p<0.05) were observed, 35/20oC producing the fastest and highest percentage of germination across both cultivars. Day length was evaluated for 8, 12, 14, and 16 hours with no significant differences (p<0.05) observed. Fluridone significantly (p<0.05) decreased the germination time and increased the percentage of total germination of Riviera while only significant differences (p<0.05) in germination time observed with Casino Royale.