THE HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORAGE BERMUDAGRASS: III. A FOCUS ON DIGESTIBILITY AND YIELD September 2011 Georgia Cattleman

Over the last couple months, we have celebrated the Georgia Cattlemen’s Association’s 50 year by recounting the story of the development of bermudagrass in a three-part series. It is no accident that improved bermudagrasses are the most widely grown warm season perennial forages in the Southeastern US. It is the ultimate story of making lemons into lemonade, and many in the state of Georgia have played an important role in many steps along the way. In this third and final installment in the series, attention is turned to how bermudagrass breeding in the USDA-ARS and UGA program began to focus more on forage quality and digestibility and how this ended up setting a precedent for how forage breeders would develop new varieties thereafter.