Relationship of shoot morphology between seedlings and established turf in creeping bentgrass

Shoot morphological characteristics are important determinants of turf quality in creeping bentgrass. The objectives of this research were to determine differences for tiller and stolon characteristics among creeping bentgrass cultivars and germplasms and compare these characteristics between seedlings and established turf. Two experiments involving 10 and 15 entries were grown in controlled environment chambers and harvested as seedlings at 21, 35 and 49 d and 21, 28 and 35 d, respectively. Nine and fifteen creeping bentgrass entries were grown in separate field experiments on sand-based golf greens and core samples were taken for subsequent measurements at 3 yr and 1 yr, respectively. Tiller and stolon measurements included seedling tillers plant−1 in the controlled environment; tillers m−2 on established turf; and leaf number, leaf width, plant height/stolon length, internode length, internode number, and stolon diameter in all experiments. The correlation coefficient for seedling tillers plant−1 at 35...