Premium Sod Blend sounds good. NuDestiny performs well in my area. I've never heard of cisco seed before. Do you know any place you can order it online?

What part of the country are you in? In some places there is enough rainfall that you don't need to water your lawn that much.

I agree that we need to know where you are before we know which of these would be good for you. In some areas, perennial rye will do better, but if you're in an area where KBG does well, I wouldn't get a mix of rye and bluegrass.

I live in Kokomo, IN 60 miles north of Indy and I want the best lawn I can maintain w/o applying a lot of water. Watering an acre of grass is too much work w/o an irrigation system.
These new elite seed are supposed to be better than the big box store brand.
Thanks!
Andy

Andy, without any additional irrigation other than rain, the rye grass blends will toast on you the very first heat wave.
The Kentucky bluegrass blend (Premium Sod Blend) will go dormant for you during the summer and look dead.

How important is it to you to have elite turf cultivars on property's edges? What I'm thinking is have a front lawn (in front of the house) using the elites, and keep that area irrigated. The other edges of your property, a common tall fescue would be better suited because of its drought tolerance.

I partially agree with Gary.

Here's where I agree.

Rye will die on you.

KBG will go dormant in your area if you don't water it, but it will come back when you get some rain.

Here's where I at least partially disagree.

Tall fescue is somewhat overrated for drought tolerance, in my opinion. KBG has better overall drought tolerance than tall fescue. Tall fescue is better at drought resistance. If your soil conditions allow tall fescue to develop deep roots, it can go a long time without water before it goes dormant, so it will stay green much longer than KBG will. This is particularly true of K31. K31 is an unimproved tall fescue variety that has wide blades and grows much faster than KBG, so it looks weedy in a KBG lawn, but it will take a lot of abuse and it stayed green here in the desert when I shut off my sprinklers for a month, so it may stay green in IN with no additional water. It's a bunch grass, so you'll need to overseed it periodically.

The drawback to tall fescue is that when it does go dormant, there is a much shorter time between dormant and dead. That's why I say it's more drought resistant than drought tolerant.

Guys,

Thanks for the feedback!

I was hoping that one of the "elite" Kentucky blue grass varieties would be able to handle a little drought. The K31 fescue is the main reason I want a new lawn. It got spot seeded in my lawn 10 years ago and now I want a new lawn w/o this type wide blade clumping grass. Yes, the K31 can take considerable amount of drought but IÂm seeking a high quality KBG lawn.

I have enclosed a web site of the "elite" seed mfg in the US. Does anyone have experience with a KBG variety that looks great and is somewhat heat tolerant.

http://lawnsmarts.com/viewtopic.php?t=267

I was not aware the perennial rye grass dies out during a drought! It Cisco Exectu-turf Sun mix contains a 60% rye mix and only 40% KGB mix.

If the KBG goes dormant and comes back when the weather cools off or water is plentiful, than I OK with that, but would like to invest in a variety that can take a little more heat then the normal KBG variety.

Does anyone have any experience in an elite KBG variety that can tolerate a considerable amount of drought? Considerable amount of drought means 10 days no water and 85% temperature.

Thanks again!
Andy

Texas hybrid bluegrass is a cross between Kentucky bluegrass (poa pratensis) and Texas bluegrass (poa arachnifera)

Andy , copy and paste the below into a browser window. These are what you are looking for, not the elite KBG's.
Williams and Pawnee Buttes both sell them.

http://www.avseeds.com/stellent/groups/public/documents/web_content/ecmd0010188.pdf

http://www.avseeds.com/stellent/groups/public/documents/web_content/ecmd0010232.pdf

http://www.avseeds.com/stellent/groups/public/documents/web_content/ecmd0010249.pdf

http://www.pickseed.com/WCanada/techSheets/pdf/bandera_ts.pdf

http://www.scottsproseed.com/_pdf/SolarGreenBrochure.pdf

I don't know where the idea that PR can't handle drought comes from. If deep rooting is encouraged instead of high top growth in the Spring it does very well when it gets dry. I had an all-PR lawn that did extremely well - I replaced it with an elite KBG because of winter kill, not summer problems. I know that many of the people making these statements on GW have never grown an all-PR lawn -- they've told me so.

Go to the NTEP.ORG site and look at the Schedule A and Schedule B info (high maintenance and low maintenance) data before you assume that an elite KBG will do OK with less water and fertilizer. While it may not be politically correct to say so on this forum, I find that elite KBG is more a hobby (time and effort) than a utility lawn.

Guys,
Thanks for the feedback!
I checked out the bluegrass hybrids lawns that were designed to handle heat & drought and IÂm a little concerned about the width of the grass blade. I desire a KBG lawn which is a soft thin bladed grass. Most likely, I will be forced to compromise between the KBG soft, thin, dark green grass blade that goes dormant in the summer with a wider, firmer blade grass that is medium green but very heat tolerant grass. I plan to mow this lawn at 4" height to help it in the heat of the Kokomo, IN summer.
I have heard that the elite KBG lawns are very labor intensive and require much fertilizer and water but the results are outstanding.
I want all the desirable quality of an elite KBG lawn but do not want the high watering requirements!
Thanks again!
Andy

>"I had an all-PR lawn that did extremely well"

But, you irrigated.

Gary:

On the PR lawn, I had a two years that we were under water restrictions (severe). Two hours of total watering a week. I have 1 acre of lawn that had to be watered (manually!) in those two hours. No automatic system. My PR lawn never went dormant. All the KBG lawns went dormant in the area. I was accused everywhere in town of watering in the middle of the night. I did not. With good soil care, I had roots a mile deep. All of the "make it green fast with a Step program" folks had no root system to get them through.

Don't get me wrong - I prefer KBG but let's let the facts speak for themselves --- PR does not die with heat. Want to ask me about winter kill on PR? I'll curse like a truck driver for an hour.

I'm looking at rhizomatous tall fescue from Barenburg. The ability to spread and self-repair with rhizomes like KBG with the low maintenance (less water and fertilizer) from a deep root system of a tall fescue.