Tall fescue is a very heat and drought tolerant, cool season turf, which can remain green throughout the year in the arid Southwest. Data are lacking on the performance of tall fescue varieties in this location. Sixty-five tall fescue entries were established in November 1987 and their performance as a home-lawn turf rated for quality, color, density, percent ground cover, pest incidence and water use. All varieties performed very well during the first seven months of 1989, but a decline in August quality was observed during summer monsoons mainly due to the incidence of large brown patch (Rhizoctonia solani L.) and record-setting high temperatures. Turf still showed signs of stress by mid-September. Turfgrass irrigation water use from 1 January to 23 September totalled 43.3 inches (1100.5 mm) and averaged 63 % of predicted evapotranspiration.

Spring transition (from ryegrass to bermudagrass) has been problematic for the last 20 years based on, in part, improved heat tolerance and lower growing cultivars of perennial ryegrass. Annual ryegrass is used sparingly for commercial properties and for home owners in southern Arizona. Hybrid ryegrass (cross between perennial and annual ryegrass) has been manufactured by seed companies in an effort to improve the transition of a grass used specifically for overseeding, with improved turf grass attributes over those of annual ryegrass. A field test was conducted to evaluate several hybrid ryegrasses, two improved annual ryegrasses, and Gulf annual ryegrass under homeowner conditions. The true annuals produced the quickest amount of ground cover in the shortest period of time. By early December, all plots had 98% or more cover, with FH having 95% cover. Transend, Transport and 041 Lh had consistently high quality scores throughout most of the 8 month test, with Transport and 04 1 LH scoring for fair turfgrass quality into mid June. Sprint annual ryegrass had excellent turfgrass quality scores in November and December, however, scores declined substantially in April and afterwards. After emergence and into early December, Transport and 041LH clearly had the darkest turf coloration, with 041LH producing a turf with a color intensity typical of medium green perennial ryegrass. Gulf and FH were noticeably lighter in color. Gulf, Sprint and Transcend developed ring/patch type disease symptoms in early February 2007, while others did not. "Stemminess" ratings in late spring (a time at which annual ryegrass is typically pronouncedly so) showed that FH intermediate and Gulf produced the most "stemmy" turfs, followed by Sprint annual. Transport and 041LH showed hardly any seed head culm development, with Transcend being intermediate. Interestingly, not all the entries which generally had the highest numerical rankings for density, texture, uniformity and overall turfgrass quality, had the highest percent plot living overseed during transition. Entry 041LH had 30% overseed, 46% bermuda, and 24% straw. Transcend had 16% overseed, 25% straw and59% straw on June 12. Transport had the highest retention of green overseed (72%), with 23% bermuda and 5% bare ground or straw plot cover. Sprint had 19% overseed, 20% live bermudagrass, and 61% bare straw plot cover, more so than that of Gulf. Final quality scores showed that 041LH and Transport had the best quality mean rank values, with all others having low quality scores on 12 June just prior to scalping to fully reconstitute the underlying Tifway bermudagrass. This shows vast improvements in turfgrass performance for INTERMEDIATES, which previously (and again) show near full acceptability in most turfgrass attributes, and now show enhanced color. Likewise, improvements in strict annual types show improved turf quality (Sprint) over Gulf.

Forty nine seeded entries were overseeded into Tifway bermudagrass maintained at 5/8" inch. Improved annuals showed better turf performance in most categories than GULF annual, while hybrid(intermediate ryegrasses) showed great improvement over original release material. Annuals and hybrids were more vigorous in plot establishment after emergence until late November/early December, when perennial types increased plot cover. Poa trivilais was slower to emerge than other grasses, but had excellent performance in the coldest parts of the winter season, only to decline early in the spring for overall turfgrass quality. Turfgrass color scores were greatest on 17 February and 27 March. On 17 February, the mean color scores ranged from a low value for Gulf annual (4.0), to the Jacklin blend which averaged 8.5 (Table 3). Other darker entries included the PHD blend (8.0), B-5.1095 ryegrass (8.0), B-6.1523 ryegrass (8.0) Pick EJ ryegrass (8.0), B-6.1523 (8.0), Brea ryegrass (7.8), Pavilion ryegrass (7.8), RX ryegrass blend (7.8), Acapella ryegrass (7.8) Ringer II (7.8) and PM 102 ryegrass (7.8). Physical mowing stress was evident on 2 May, in which grasses exhibited leaf tip shredding and elongated flowering culms. Gulf and Panterra annual aul ryegrass showed the least favorable mowing response. STR 4NV (intermediate ryegrass ) had mow stress-type symptoms similar to perennial ryegrass, which was much less than that of the annual types. On 19 June, bermudagrass plot cover ranged from 17.5% (Laser PT) to 100% cover on several other entries. The Rx ryegrass blend, Bar LM TL annual ryegrass, Leaguemaster blend, and Heat PR all had 100% bermudagrass cover. The non-overseeded checks had 95% bermudagrass on 19 June. There were nine entries with 90% or more bermudagrass, ten entries that had 80-85% bermuda, four entries that had between 85-90% Bermuda, and sixteen entries with 75% or less bermudagrass on 19 June. The Champion Fine mixture had 55% bermudagrass. PHD had 63%. Pavilion had 63% bermuda as well. The Poa trivialis entries had the least amount of bermudagrass present. Entries which had high quality scores on average throughout the entire test period (early November to July 12 included the entries, Champion RB (mixture of creeping red fescue and perennial ryegrass) (6.8) ; Champion GC (mixture of fine fescue and perennial rygrass) (6.8) ; the experimental ryegrass B-6.1523 (6.7) ; Jackilin Blend A (6.7) ; the experimental ryegrass B-6.1091 (6.9) ; and B-6.0756 (6.8) ; Entries which had generally throughout the entire season had good quality and high amounts of bermudagrass on 19 June included Heat (100%), STR 4TPC (93%), STR 4QT (90%), RX (100%), Jacklin Blend A (88%), B-6.1095 (95%), and Champion STF (98%). Other entries had a quicker transition, but had lower mean quality scores otherwise, while others had high quality scores, but a slower transition.

Overseeding bermudagrass with a cool season grass species is often necessary because of cold temperature dormancy (to bermudagrass) realized in the overwhelmingly large majority of winter seasons. Forty (40) entries of either perennial, annual, or hybrid ryegrass cultivars, blends and species mixtures, were evaluated for season long overseed performance under semi-arid conditions over Tifway bermudagrass mowed at 5/8". Treatment "mean squares" were statistically significant on all evaluation dates for turfgrass color, quality, density, texture, and percent canopy composition. Entries differed in mean quality performance based on the time of year (fall, winter vs. spring). Entries with high fall/winter quality scores included Cutter II perennial ryegrass, Dasher III perennial ryegrass, PST-2TQL perennial ryegrass, PST- 2TQL perennial ryegrass, Revenge GLX perennial ryegrass, 7.0516 perennial ryegrass, DGA ryegrass blend, Derby, 03 PT-3 Poa trivialis, and Palmer V. Entries which ranked highest for spring performance included New Arrival, Palmer GLS, L4O-6-XLT-1, Patriot 4, Overture blend, Shining Star, and 041- LH. Entries which ranked highest for year round quality included New Arrival, Palmer V, Palmer GLS, 03PT3 Poa trivialis, PST-2TQL, Overture blend 042LH hybrid ryegrass, and Top Gun II. Entries which had an early and strong transition as well as good quality prior to and including the transition included the following: Patriot 4, Shining Star, L040-6-XLT-1, 04-2 LH hybrid ryegrass, Applaud II, 7.0156, Revenge GLX, SPT-2T QL, Palmer 4 and New Arrival.

Five hybrid ryegrasses were evaluated as low maintenance turfs against Gulf annual ryegrass an one turf-type perennial ryegrass, when mowed once a week at 2.75 inches. Among four improved hybrid ryegrass entries, several hybrid ryegrass entries did not statistically differ from the dark perennial ryegrass color as hybrid 05 ABL maintained dark color throughout the test from November 2007, to late April 2008. The entries 05 ABD, 04-1 LH and 04-2 LH all provided nominally dark color turfs, which held good color even up to the end of April. At a seed rate of 625 lbs PLS/acre, all entries produced acceptable "dense" turfs, with the exception of Gulf annual. The hybrids 05 ABL and 04-2 LH produced very dense turfs, with high apparent shoot densities very similar to that of perennial ryegrass. Both 04-1 LH and 0 5 ABD hybrids also produced satisfactory turf densities as well. While the perennial ryegrass "American Star" had very narrow leaves, the hybrid 04 2 LH also had fine leaves throughout the season. Hybrid 05 ABL was also fine textured. After emergence, 04-1 LH hybrid had somewhat wider leaves than some of the other hybrids, but it produced finer leaves shortly afterwards until the close of the test. Measured leaf widths ranged from 1.4 to 2.7 mm in February under peak performance conditions of growth and weather. American Star perennial ryegrass ranked highest for quality on most occasions, but was often included in the same statistical mean performance grouping (within the same LSD value range) with the hybrid entries of 04-2 LH, 04-1LH, 05 ABD, and 05 ABL. Froghair was generally better than Gulf annual in quality, while the check plots (nonoverseeded) showed green up by late April. At mid June, both Gulf annual and Froghair hybrid ryegrass had the least amount of overseed present, but the bermudagrass was not filling in quickly as other hybrids which had more bermudagrass cover present and less straw (from dead overseed) present. This was true for hybrids 05 ABL (41% bermuda: 13% straw), and 04-1 LH (25% bermuda: 11% straw). Therefore, there are hybrid entries which show better transition than Gulf annual, and at the same time produce lesser amounts of lingering necrotic tissue at transition.