Correlation of three salinity tolerance screening methods for cool-season turfgrasses

The identification of turfgrasses with salinity tolerance will be important for the successful implementation of saline irrigation water use on turfgrass sites. Salinity tolerance in turfgrasses has been evaluated using different techniques, including hydroponic and overhead irrigation methods. This study compared turfgrass response and efficiency of three different salinity screening methods: hydroponic, an overhead irrigation greenhouse method, and a field screening method. There was a significant correlation among all three methods for percent green ratings and a significant correlation between the two greenhouse techniques for dry clipping weights, dry shoot weights, and dry root weights. A difference in magnitude was observed between methods. The overhead-irrigated greenhouse and field methods had lower percent green value ratings than the hydroponic method. However, similar rankings among perennial ryegrass clones were found between methods indicating that numerous methods can be used to screen turfgrass germplasm for salinity tolerance with similar results. The cost, time, and available area required and reliability varied depending on the method with the field screening requiring the most area (929 cm² per plant) and cost ($23.18 per plant) and the hydroponic method requiring the most time (48.3 min per plant). However, these results indicate any of these methods should be sufficient to screen germplasm for salinity tolerance. This information will be useful to plant breeding programs choosing selection methods for germplasm screening.