‘ST-5’, a Shade-tolerant Turf Bermudagrass

‘ST-5’ turf bermudagrass is an interspecific [Cynodon transvaalensis Burt-Davy · C. dactylon (L.)] shade-tolerant triploid (2n = 3x = 27 chromosomes) hybrid cultivar released cooperatively by the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. ‘ST-5’ was selected in 1993 from 27,700 hybrids made in 1992. This cultivar is a male and female sterile perennial plant that is vegetatively propagated. It has been tested from 1993 through 2007 in numerous replicated tests and at a number of locations. ‘ST-5’ has performed well under normal sunlight in the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) and under up to 70% continuously reduced photosynthetically active radiation light in the 400to 700-nm wavelength range at Tifton, GA, measured with a Spectrum Technologies, Inc. Dual Radiation Meter (Spectrum Technologies, Inc., Plainfield, IL) at the level of the bermudagrass sod. Shade studies were conducted under a rain-out shelter (opposite end of the shelter used for drought tolerance research) with a fiberglass roof 1.8 m above the plots and which extended 2.7 m beyond the perimeter of the experiments (each plot was 1.8 · 1.8 m in size). Plots had continuous shade except when it rained and the shelter cover moved to the droughttolerance plots.