Jackpot Bermuda Grass

Donkey – posted 10 October 2001 06:53

I am wondering if Jackpot Bermuda Grass is a good type of grass of Baseball Fields. All the info I have gotten looks good but is anyone out there that has this growing. How long did it take to get established and really growing good.

seed – posted 10 October 2001 10:33

Donkey, while University experiment station tests are only a rough estimate of grass variety performance in the real world, they are the most comprehensive and systematic information we have. The National Turfgrass Evaluation Program http://ntep.org reports turf variety performance, such as the National Bermudagrass Test-1997 which has 19 locations in which the same 28 varieties are compared.

Based on this ongoing test, the 1999 data showed that Jackpot was the third worst (out of 18) seeded bermudagrass varieties, based on average turfgrass quality across locations. While Jackpot did about average compared with other varieties at some locations, such as Georgia, it was usually in the bottom rank. The second best seeded variety in this study, based on 1999 data, was Princess, which was submitted by Seeds West, Inc. Surprisingly, Princess was comparable to the better rated vegetative bermudagrasses.

The use of seeded varieties of bermudagrass such as Jackpot, Princess, as well as Numex-Sahara, Cheyenne, Savannah, Sonesta, and Arizona Common (as examples of historically widely distributed types) has been uncommon in Florida, though there are excellent uses of some of these varieties in other southeastern United States, and successful uses in other countries. What the vegetative varieties (such as Tifway or 419, and Tifsport) have tended to offer is high shoot density, an indicator of relative wear tolerance. Based on the NTEP overall quality ratings, some new seeded varieties such as Princess seem to be about as good as the vegetative varieties, based on university tests, but Jackpot is not among the top rank.

Phil