Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Cultivar blends: A strategy for creating more resilient warm season turfgrass lawns
Abstract Turfgrass lawns are synonymous with plant selection in the built environment. Plants in urban landscapes are largely selected to enhance aesthetic quality and comply with social norms. Warm season turfgrasses are produced and planted as intraspecific cultivar monocultures to preserve heritable traits that meet aesthetic standards. Monocultures are less resilient to biotic and abiotic stress than more diverse plantings, which increases reliance on pesticides and resource-intensive maintenance and presents unintended environmental risks. Increasing interspecific plant diversity may provide the greatest resilience benefits, but it introduces production, maintenance, and marketing barriers that can inhibit industry and consumer acceptance. Intraspecific cultivar blends may provide plant diversity resilience benefits without compromising industry and consumer values. Using a four-year field experiment we determined the effects of mixing warm season turfgrass cultivars on lawn resilience and aesthetic quality. We find that mixing turfgrass cultivars increases quality compared to cultivar monocultures, but primarily when a poorly performing cultivar is present. Mixtures of four cultivars containing the poorly performing cultivar averaged 42% greater plant cover and 33% greater aesthetic quality than monocultures of that cultivar, indicating that the other cultivars compensated for the loss of one from the stand. Three years after planting, perceived aesthetic quality of lawns by turfgrass industry professionals was above the minimum aesthetic threshold only for plots containing blends of four cultivars. Thus, our results suggest that mixing warm season turfgrass cultivars extends the longevity of turfgrass coverage and quality compared to conventional cultivar monocultures. Such benefits can reduce monetary, natural resource, and pesticide inputs without conflicting with social aesthetic norms and may be a ready-made approach to more sustainable lawns in urban greenspaces.
Cultivar blends: A strategy for creating more resilient warm season turfgrass lawns
Abstract Turfgrass lawns are synonymous with plant selection in the built environment. Plants in urban landscapes are largely selected to enhance aesthetic quality and comply with social norms. Warm season turfgrasses are produced and planted as intraspecific cultivar monocultures to preserve heritable traits that meet aesthetic standards. Monocultures are less resilient to biotic and abiotic stress than more diverse plantings, which increases reliance on pesticides and resource-intensive maintenance and presents unintended environmental risks. Increasing interspecific plant diversity may provide the greatest resilience benefits, but it introduces production, maintenance, and marketing barriers that can inhibit industry and consumer acceptance. Intraspecific cultivar blends may provide plant diversity resilience benefits without compromising industry and consumer values. Using a four-year field experiment we determined the effects of mixing warm season turfgrass cultivars on lawn resilience and aesthetic quality. We find that mixing turfgrass cultivars increases quality compared to cultivar monocultures, but primarily when a poorly performing cultivar is present. Mixtures of four cultivars containing the poorly performing cultivar averaged 42% greater plant cover and 33% greater aesthetic quality than monocultures of that cultivar, indicating that the other cultivars compensated for the loss of one from the stand. Three years after planting, perceived aesthetic quality of lawns by turfgrass industry professionals was above the minimum aesthetic threshold only for plots containing blends of four cultivars. Thus, our results suggest that mixing warm season turfgrass cultivars extends the longevity of turfgrass coverage and quality compared to conventional cultivar monocultures. Such benefits can reduce monetary, natural resource, and pesticide inputs without conflicting with social aesthetic norms and may be a ready-made approach to more sustainable lawns in urban greenspaces.
Cultivar blends: A strategy for creating more resilient warm season turfgrass lawns
Whitman, Brianna (Autor:in) / Iannone, Basil V. (Autor:in) / Kruse, Jason K. (Autor:in) / Unruh, J. Bryan (Autor:in) / Dale, Adam G. (Autor:in)
Urban Ecosystems ; 25
2022
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
BKL:
43.31
Naturschutz
/
42.90$jÖkologie: Allgemeines
/
43.31$jNaturschutz
/
42.90
Ökologie: Allgemeines
/
74.12
Stadtgeographie, Siedlungsgeographie
/
74.12$jStadtgeographie$jSiedlungsgeographie
Management alters C allocation in turfgrass lawns
| Elsevier | 2014
Management alters C allocation in turfgrass lawns
| Online Contents | 2015
Establishment of Warm Season Turfgrass Species by Transplant of Single Potted Plants
| British Library Conference Proceedings | 2008
Cool‐season turfgrass: estimating water use
| Wiley | 1996
Wiley | 1944