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TifBlair Extends the Range of Centipede
Centipede is a popular turfgrass selection for southernmost coastal plains and Florida because of some appealing features. It’s more shade-tolerant than bermuda. It’s also easy to maintain because it grows an even three to six inches without ragged seed heads; it can be mowed infrequently without scalping; it needs less lime and fertilizer—even prefers acid soil—and, perhaps most fascinating, it exhibits allelopathic characteristics. That means it acts as though it actually produces its own herbicide, choking out competing grasses and weeds. Add these characteristics to slow-growing but aggressive stolons (or runners), and it produces a dense, relatively weed-free, low-maintenance turf.
The negative side of common centipede is that it exhibits problems farther north—less cold tolerance and early fall brownout among them. It also has a shallow root structure that makes it relatively intolerant of drought conditions. These limitations have compromised the use of common centipede in North Carolina and other growing areas north of a line connecting Macon, Birmingham and Dallas.
TifBlair is a new variety of centipede available for the first time this year—the first certified variety, in fact—designed to overcome many of those disadvantages. With a known pedigree, it gives reliable performance and consistency year after year. The North Carolina Department of Transportation is sufficiently convinced of its advantages that they are installing it along I-95 from Rocky Mount to the Virginia line to improve appearance and reduce mowing frequency. It produces more and longer stolons with more and taller leaves on those stolons, and is therefore thicker in a shorter growing time. It does not produce underground rhizomes like bermudagrass, which makes it easy to keep out of flowerbeds and paved areas. TifBlair seeds are larger than common centipede, making them more hardy and easier to handle. Its root system is also deeper and stronger, which gives it better drought and cold tolerance. TifBlair grows more rapidly, and was rated much better than common centipede in vigor and quality during controlled tests at Blairsville and Griffin, Georgia and Stillwater, Oklahoma during winters in which temperatures dipped to -10 degrees F. Increased cold tolerance in part accounts for the fact that it also keeps its green color later in the fall. Its growth range should extend well into USDA zone 7B and possibly approach the 7A zone, which would be well into Virginia.
Though first being released for public sale in 2001, the development of TifBlair began in January 1977 when Dr. Wayne Hanna of the USDA Coastal Plains Experiment Station in Tifton, Georgia irradiated seeds of common centipedegrass to cause mutations. He then planted those seeds, harvested seed from the resulting plants, and repeated the cycle of planting and seed harvest for several years. In May of 1980 he planted the seed in outdoor plots at Blairsville, Georgia. The next year the plot was mowed monthly, and the following winter only 30% of the plants survived. The surviving plants were the hardiest mutations, and he harvested their seeds.
Dr. Hanna then irradiated the seeds again, and in the spring transplanted seedings in the outdoor plot beside the surviving parent plants. The plot was again mowed monthly each year from May 1983 to September 1985; this time about 98% of the plants survived the 1983-84 winter, and none were lost in the 1984-85 winter. By this process of mutation and natural selection, Dr. Hanna had developed centipede that was cold-tolerant. Seed harvested from the surviving plants in 1985 became TifBlair.
During the following years from 1988 to 1993 TifBlair was extensively tested in Georgia, Alabama, and Oklahoma, being observed for six generations of reproduction. It proved to be stable and uniform. In 1992 Hanna established a larger breeder’s plot of TifBlair at Tifton, and in 1993 harvested enough seeds to provide to growers.
Seed and sod production have been exclusively licensed to a consortium, The Turfgrass Group, Inc. (TTG), which is now sublicensing sod production to qualified producers throughout TifBlair’s region of adaptation. TTG began commercial seed production in 1996, and they expanded seed and sod field production significantly in 1997. The first seed was available to sod producers in 1999.
One of the North Carolina producers who has worked with TifBlair is Clarke Wooten of Tri-State Turf in Newton Grove. He’s noticed distinct allelopathic characteristics. “We’ve planted some areas aside from the turf production plots just for erosion control and for aesthetic reasons, and essentially left it untreated—no fertilizer, insecticide or herbicide. It still made a good stand, and didn’t allow weeds to come in. Some scientists believe it manufactures a kind of natural herbicide. That stand has been untouched for years, so there’s something there.”
Eastern North Carolina soils typically have low pH and require lime for best growth, according to Wooten. However, “Centipede loves a pH of 5 to 5.5, which naturally occurs here, and it’s low-growing, so that may be part of the reason it survives well under low-to-no maintenance. I’ve also observed it in the field growing side-by-side with common centipede, and it definitely retains it color longer in the fall and survives the winter without winter kill compared with the common. The winter and spring of 2001 was disastrous to our common centipede. We lost blocks as large as three acres in size; we have photos to support that. The blocks were at different elevations and stages of maturity. TifBlair, however, came through unharmed under the same conditions.”
Charles Harris of Sandhill Turf in Candor, North Carolina seconds Wooten’s observations. “It has quick, vigorous seed establishment, much better than common. It has uniform texture and color, and its frost tolerance is good.” Harris reports that “It held up well through two frosts this year, one of them in April dropping temperatures from 88 to 26 degrees. It wasn’t hurt nearly as bad as the common centipede.”
David McCart of Piedmont Turf Farm is “tickled it survived” the cold spring in 2001. “It singed it a bit, but not as bad as the 419 bermuda, which essentially went dormant again.
“Common centipede won’t really grow in our area. We planted the TifBlair late during hot, dry conditions, but seedling vigor was such that it still got established. During the fall it definitely stayed green longer than the bermuda and zoysia, even though the stand was still thin. It all came back during the spring, whereas a lot of the common centipede in the state didn’t.”
Rick Neisler of Oakland Plantation Turf Farm in Council, North Carolina says he has documented proof that TifBlair is superior to common centipede. In 2000 he had an excellent seeding year, and further ensured success by using a high seed density. The results were worth it. “We got a thick, uniform stand that didn’t give weeds a chance. I took that planting from seedlings to harvested sod in only six months,” he reports. He sold all he had. “The seedling vigor was higher than common, which gave it a faster start. I compared it one-to-one with common centipede planted the same time and under the same conditions. We’ve been real excited, and we’re expanding our use of TifBlair, because we try to align our offerings with what the market wants. We planted common centipede for 20 years, but probably won’t plant any more.” Oakland, considered a cutting-edge grower, offers 12 varieties of warm-season grass, six of which are licensed.
To obtain more information on the product, as well as local sources of sod and seed, contact The Turfgrass Group, Inc., Bill Carraway, Vice President of Marketing, 54 Brown Farm Road, Cartersville, GA 30120, telephone 770-207-1500, or visit their website at www.tifblair.com for further information.