Bermuda grass and salt water

Rob – posted 14 January 2005 11:47

Hello,

I am 3rd year BA student from The Netherlands, and I am currently working on a feasibility study of a golf course. Problem is that at the island concerned has too little residents in order to use waste-water and so there is a shortage in sprinkling water for the golf course. For it is an island, Atlantic Ocean salt water is largely available. Because of the shortage of water, salt-resistant grass is highly in favour I think. Bermuda grass, as I read, or Mohawk (a further development of Bermuda grass), is highly resistent to salt. My question is if one can sprinkle bermuda grass with this salt ocean water and still be good? If not, could it be sprinkled with a mixture of normal purified water and salt ocean water (in this way the percentage of salt per liter is less)? If both not, what are the possible consequenses? And do you have any solutions (maybe there is a complete salt resistent grass type I don’t know yet?)?I strongly hope you can help me out.

Best regards,

Rob Blokvoordemail:r.*************@*************te.nl

Buck – posted 18 January 2005 08:38

We have GN Bermuda on a barrier island in North Carolina with a canal along the back side. The canal is connected to the ocean and it is salt water. Our dogs swim in the canal and then come out and shake themselves on the turf. If I fail to flush it with clean water promptly the turf begins to degrade in only a couple of hours. Now GN is claimed to be salt tolerant but I do not think that means you can just douse it. It tolerates the salt air and mist better than the 419 I have there as well. But does not survive when soaked.

So I would say, at least for GN, there is no way you could irrigate with salt water and probably not even cut it with enough clean water to expect it to survive. It will come back after an over-wash as we have experienced from a couple of hurricanes, but it was much like coming out of dormancy.