Page 12 - Transitioning Turfgrass

TRANSITIONING TURFGRASS

03

Challenges and Opportunities for

Growing Grass in the Transition Zone

Diego Gómez de Barreda Ferraz, Universitat Politècnica de València (Valencia-Spain)

In March 1998, James B. Beard published an ar- almost no turfgrass species were domesticated
ticle on Golf Course Management entitled “The there. That is the area we call the turfgrass Tran-
origins of turfgrass species” (Beard, 1998). The au- sition Zone (TZ).
thor stated that each grass species tends to thrive In the USA, the TZ is an almost rectangular area
best under climate and soil conditions similar to between northern cool humid regions and south-
those in its region of origin. This obvious statement ern warm humid regions (parallels 34 to 37). In
was complemented by an “entertaining” descrip- Europe that same area between parallels 34 and
tion of the origin of each turfgrass genus, the sum- 37 does not exist in the same way since it involves
mary of which can be observed in Table 1. Cool mostly the Mediterranean Sea, but also regard-
season grasses evolved almost exclusively in the ing land area it includes the far South of Greece,
cool Eurasian geographical regions in forest-mar- Portugal and Spain and Sicily in Italy together
gin areas, characterized by a cool temperate cli- with northern areas of Morocco, Algeria and Tu-
mate plus reasonably good precipitation and soil nisia in Africa. However, in Europe the Mediter-
fertility, while warm season species evolved close ranean Sea has a big influence on coastal areas,
to the equator under warm and sunny climatic softening the climate and increasing the TZ lati-
conditions (Beard, 1998). tude range until parallel 45 in coastal areas.
That region of the world between the abovemen- Growing turfgrass species in the TZ is a big chal-
tioned climatic areas is also a great environment lenge as they are not completely adapted to that
for growing crops, in fact, the origin of agricul- region with 4 different climatic seasons, but on
ture began in that area, but according to Beard the other hand it is a big opportunity.

COOL SEASON GENUS WARM SEASON GENUS
Turfgrass genus Origin zone Turfgrass genus Origin zone
Eastern Africa, in the Kenyan
Agrostis Central Europe Cynodon and Pennisetum
and Uganda regions
Festuca: (Tall fescue) Southern part of Europe Paspalum East-central South America
Southern China and the
Festuca: (Fine fescues) Cool forest regions of the Alps Zoysia and Eremochloa
rest of southeast Asia
Southern Europe and temperate Eastern regions of the
regions of western Asia Stenotaphrum
Lolium American continents
around the Mediterranean and Axonopus including the West Indies
sea to northern Africa
North America semi-arid
Poa Northern regions of Europe Buchloe and Bouteloua
and arid great plains
Table 1: Origins of Turfgrass species (Beard, 1998).

8