2002-2004 Specialty Crops Research Program
University of California

Principal Investigators: A. J. Lukaszewski and V. A. Gibeault

Project title: Development of Intergeneric Hybrids of Ryegrasses with Fescues as New Cool Season Turfgrasses for California

Turfgrasses are an important component of urban life and of California economy. Currently used cool-season turfgrasses, such as perennial ryegrass, Lolium perenne and, to a lesser extent, Italian ryegrass, L. multiflorum, are highly desirable but have problems with persistence and tolerance of various stresses and diseases. Very narrow range of variation limits the progress of breeding. Tall fescue, Festuca arundinacea, is coarse and requires heavy irrigation. We propose to mitigate those deficiencies by developing turfgrasses from intergeneric hybrids of ryegrasses with fescues. The two complement each other in their profiles of important characteristics. As the experience with forage grasses demonstrates, intergeneric hybrids can be used to successfully combine the desirable characteristics of the two genera. We will select in the populations of L. multiflorum x Festuca pratensis and L. perenne x F. pratensis hybrids for the best combinations of useful turf characteristics with improved pest and disease resistance, tolerance of heat and improved water-use efficiency; to stabilize the variation we will generate pollen haploids from selected individuals. To understand the genetics of turf characteristics, we will develop a set of introgression lines of single chromosome from F. pratensis into L. multiflorum and use them to assign desirable characteristics to individual chromosomes and their segments, and to tag such segments with molecular markers for marker assisted selection in cultivar development. We expect that this will create the potential for new types of turfgrasses thereby providing a significant advantage to the California turfgrass industry.