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Mon, Sep 26, 11 at 19:21
| Can I use Orfeo KGB for a brand new home construction in Philadelphia suburbs? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Yes, but it is getting a bit late in the season to start a new lawn even though it is fast to germinate when compared with other KBG's. Also most people don't recommend KBG monostands, but Orfeo being aggressive is probably better suited than some of the elites. |
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| I'm not planning to do it right now. By the way, what is the best fescue? Just in case I don't want to do bluegrass... |
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| In order to determine the "best fescue", your location (city and state) would be helpful. Also, what are your yard conditions...full sun, partial shade, fairly shady. |
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| King of Prussia, PA near Philadelphia Some areas shaded, mostly sun. |
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| Bullseye, Turbo, Faith, Cochise IV, and Falcon V are some of the best performing tall fescue cultivars in your area. There are plenty of others, but any of those five should give you great results. Bullseye is the stand out as it has very good drought tolerance and brown patch resistance, a very important trait, but the other four are close in brown patch resistance. If you want to go further into analyzing tall fescue cultivars then head on over to www.ntep.org . |
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| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXStfcUNGTk |
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| Hi tiemco, What blend of KGB do you recommend, if not doing a monostand |
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| I definitely want 100% KBG, but I just need a recommendation on a polystand. I assume Orfeo should be a part of it. |
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| Why would you assume that? The general consensus among experts is that for a %100 KBG lawn you should use at least three cultivars that are each different in terms of KBG classification. Most people use 33% of the following types: Compact, Compact Midnight, and Compact America. Now these rules aren't set in stone, and you can add some Orfeo to that if you want, but Orfeo is an aggressive type, so it might not blend as well in terms of color and growth rate. Orfeo is from Europe, where they generally prefer their lawns to be lighter in color than what most Americans like, dark green. I prefer consistency personally, so I would rather have a consistent light green lawn, like a fairway, over a mostly dark green lawn with lighter patches, but if you have full sun to light shade, you should be able to grow a dark KBG lawn. In determining what KBG's you should choose that depends on what qualities you want. Do you want the darkest green lawn you can get? How important is spring green up to you? Any shade? Is watering in times of no rain an issue? More important than this is getting a soil test to determine the condition of your soil. Bad soil won't grow great grass. |
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| What is your opinion of the best strains of Compact, Compact Midnight, and Compact America? |
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| I would like a dark consistent green. |
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| There is no "best cultivar", any more than there is a best car. A Lamborghini is cool, but not so hot at hauling lumber. List your favorite characteristics (color, drought tolerance, blade width, Spring Greenup, sod strength, etc) and find a cultivar from each "Family Group" that demonstrates those characteristics - that will be "best" for YOU. If you choose something from the Aggressive Family, don't use more than 20% in a mix, or it will take over in a few years. I have an Aggressive Family monostand, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a long-time lawn nut. A disease can rip through a monostand at speeds you wouldn't believe. |
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Tue, Feb 14, 12 at 23:07
| In fact the answer to what is the best variety is so complicated, here is a link to the 158 page report just for KBG. There is another link to the fescue report if you are interested. All at NTEP. |
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| Enochian, Please email me your address as I have some helpful information that is much too extensive for this format. Thanks. chorvath360@hotmail.com |
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| I did some research. How about equal parts by weight: Bewitched |
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Wed, Feb 15, 12 at 22:03
| It has been a few years, but I do remember those being discussed a lot in these forums. |
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| Those three are all very good cultivars that are used often by individuals that desire a dark green KBG lawn. |
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| Do you think they are the best in their respective classes? |
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| As Andy said earlier, there is no "best" cultivar, but if you want to quantify it, then I will try to help you out. The best data that we have to quantify turfgrass is the NTEP trials. The latest KBG trial just ended, so those cultivars are the latest ones with 5 years of data. Unfortunately the data you should pay attention to (the NJ sites since you are in Phily) has the grass cut very short, much shorter than you will probably keep it for your lawn, but if you think about it, the darkest short KBG should be the darkest longer KBG, but this is only an assumption. So if you follow that logic, lets take a look at your choices. Your compact midnight is Nu Destiny. In the NTEP NuDestiny scored 6.1 overall for schedule B (1-2 inches mowing height, irrigation to prevent dormancy, some herbicide used to prevent stand loss), and 7.3 in NJ1(North Brunswick) and 5.2 at NJ2 (Adelphia). The best overall scored 6.4, so 6.1 is close, but in the NJ1 scores NuDestiny scored second best for overall quality (highest was 7.6 for Excursion), and was close to the top at NJ2 (6.3 was the highest for two cultivars). So statistically NuDestiny is close enough to the top where it shouldn't be an issue. Most of the compact midnights are highly conserved, so they perform similarly as a group with minor variations. Bewitched scored 6.2 overall, with 6.1's at both NJ locations. This was the top performer for the compact family in this test. It is pretty much the go to for compacts, many people use it for just such a reason. Bedazzled was tested in the 2000 NTEP, it's scores were impressive. It was a 5.8 overall for schedule B, and it's NJ score was 6.0. Again, pretty much the best compact midnight tested in that trial, a go to for compact america's. Now you can spend hours looking at the data especially in other categories, but some if you want real world examples with photos, you have to know where to look. Shoot me an email and I will direct you to such a place. chorvath360@hotmail.com (don't worry, I am not going to send you prices on ED drugs. If you search my handle you will see that I have been on this forum for years and have replied to many posts.) |
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