Influence of traffic stress on warm season turfgrass species under simulated traffic

Traffic stress causes wear injury and soil compaction. Various anatomical and morphological plant characteristics have been suggested to correspond with turfgrass wear tolerance are well documented in cool season turfgrass but not much with warm season turfgrass. So in order to evaluate warm season turfgrass like cowgrass, Manilagrass and seashore paspalum grass were considered with two levels of traffic; No traffic (T0) and High traffic (T1). Results have shown that high traffic significantly reduced the performance of turfgrasses compared to no traffic. Manilagrass under high traffic recorded the lowest reduction in turf quality, turf cover (19.3% at 90 days after treatment), root length (2.5cm), root fresh (0.61 g) and dry weight (0.31 g), total chlorophyll (0.02 mg/g) and total non-structural carbohydrates content (2.7%) with reduced cellulose (29.27%), hemicelluloses (63.49%) and lignin (5.58%) content. Manilagrass exhibited considerably better performance among evaluated turfgrasses and scored first position in wear tolerance even with increased bulk density.