# Midnight Kentucky Bluegrass to Tahoma 31 [Upper Transition Zone]



## tneicna (May 6, 2019)

I was on the fence about this for a long time until recently. Also, I lost all the pictures for the below research (months back, someone broke my vehicle window out, popped the trunk and stole my laptop bag with my Nikon camera.)

I live in the DC Metro area, so obviously, we have hot summers and brutally cold winters. In the last few years, our summers are growing hotter (with less precip). Not only that, at least 3 of the homes across the street replaced all their front-facing windows with triple-pane glass that reflects a lot of Sun's rays back towards my property. It's cooking my lawn from May until late July! (when the Sun's angle changes). I verified this with a Flier thermal imager a few times over the last 2 years. A possible solution would be an in-ground irrigation system, but that is costly for me (increased water bills + installation). Other potential solutions: More heat-tolerant KBG cultivars, but they are lighter in green color.

So the routine is this: Lawn looks great from March until late May, then partial dormancy, heat death, partial recovery over summer, then in the fall the lawn is patchy where it died. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I was able to bandaid it with huge amounts of liquid seaweed/kelp (every-other-day applications). But with the rising costs of materials, energy, etc it's is time for a change.

So over the last ~5 years, I investigated some more invasive solutions such as ditching the cool season for the warm season cultivars.

I tried the following in test plots. Bermudas:



Latitude 36. I plugged this up and it grew very well. It was lighter in color than Midnight, and comparable to some other non Midnight cultivars. It loved the heat. Cold hardy, It remained Green until November, about a week after first freeze then remained dormant until the End of March (2019). I'd say winterkill was 50%. Not as bad as the below. 


Northbridge. Nearly identical to L36, but with some slight color differences. Not as cold hardy as L36, and suffered heavy damage. It seems to be going away as a product because some of the SOD farmers I spoke with dropped it. 


Tifway 419. It was annihilated during a very unusual cold snap during the Winter of 2018 (100% winterkill). It had better color than L36. 


TifTuff. 100% winterkill with no survival at all. Similar to 419, at least genetically - from what I could locate. There are some subtle differences in genes that control antioxidant and carbohydrate metabolism. 


Patriot. I tried to get my hands on this, but all the SOD farms within 350 miles that carried it, no longer carry it. 


Yukon. It was established from seed, and was very cold tolerant - probably the best cold tolerance / low winterkill. Color was darker L36, but the color appeared to be more in line with 419. Was released to the market in 2003, and still available. 

Zoysia: It could be considered The Warm-Season variant of Bluegrass, with some exceptions: Zoysia grows very very thick, more than my KBG lawn (even with huge amounts of soil steroids like Organics/Kelp/Plenty of Water/etc). Its winter color is very 'brown' - almost like a cardboard color.


Innovation: It seemed good, on paper. Unfortunately, like many cold and warm-season grass cultivars, this specific hybrid cultivar will probably not gain as much traction as others (Zeon, Empire, Emerald, etc). However, TAMU et al have at least 4 to 5 others in testing plots, one of which is about an 8.5 on genetic color (out of 9), but I don't know much about it because it's just a research grass, but it could be another hybrid of Z. matrella =/= Zoysia japonica (the former has no cold tolerance at all and the rather does, but the former is the best looking and the rather is more of a Meyer). It had a decent texture and a slightly darker color than Latitude 36. It had very excellent winter survival, but it didn't go active until soil temperatures were ~=60F. 


Chisholm: It's another Z. japonica cultivar (Meyer), but it does have subtle differences. It seems to establish much faster than Innovation, at least in a small test plot. Color was not as dark as Innovation. Same winter survival, but its leaf texture/color reminded me of old Kentucky-31. (Meh) 


Emerald: In my personal opinion, out of all the grass cultivars I have tried, this is probably the best looking (IMO it's better than Midnight!). It felt very soft under my feet; for the small 10x10 section of Sod I had installed. Its color was darker than Innovation and Chisholm. Did not survive the winter. (100% winterkill). I really wish we had a cold hardy type of Emerald. 

After visiting a Sod farm that had some Tahoma 31. I have decided to move ahead with 1600sqft of Tahoma 31 Sod.

Stay tuned.


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## LushLife18 (May 10, 2021)

Wow! You're right in my neck of the woods and just described exactly the sort of research that I'm starting to get into for my 6K sqft backyard reno. And not to mention that you've actually done real testing in your environment - way cool!

We just moved to a new home about 3 weeks ago. The backyard needs a bunch of work. Main goals are establishing a super-resilient turf for sports purposes...I have 3 boys that play all outdoor sports all day with their friends and they absolutely demolished my last home's backyard (TTTF). I just couldn't keep up with trying to re-grow the wear zones. Even with rotating the soccer goal, home plate, etc.

For this new property, the backyard needs a bunch of regrading and levelling work first. Estimates are coming in for that now. For the sod, I started looking first at Zoysia (Empire, Zeon, Geo) given wear tolerance and lower input and maintenance reqts. But I'm leaning away from Zoysia now based on an assumption that it won't self-heal the inevitable wear zones quite as well as a (cold-hardy) Bermuda might, meaning I'd be more or less right back to where I was with the TTTF, filling in dirt patches and chasing kids off my baby grasslings. If the trade is more maintenance for a bermuda to avoid more re-growing "downtime" on the zoysia (or even TTTF), I think I take the bermuda trade.

While my needs are probably a little different than yours, I'm curious as to your (and anyone else interested!) thoughts on what I'm going for and the suitability of some of the more cold-tolerant Bermuda cultivars like Lat 36 and Tahoma 31. Love to piggyback on the research of "those who have gone before". Thanks for considering a comment!


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## kevchuey (Dec 24, 2020)

I'm out in northern California, though I am very familiar with the tri-state weather. My situation is slightly different in that I'm potentially looking to shift to warmer season grass (I have PRG now) for both heat (my yard has a TON of hot spots from similar window and wall reflection) and drought. PRG is a water sucker, and I really feel bad watering as much as it needs (right now my yard has a ton of dormancy already, which hurts the soul). I know of a golf course or two shifting from PRG to hybrid bermudas as well, which gives me a slight bit of confidence.

I had been strongly considering the same sets of Bermuda. I actually just bought a pound of Yukon for a test plot. Hadn't considered getting plugs of hybrids (though I really liked the research I went through on Tahoma 31).

@tneicna How is your Tahoma 31 sod?!?


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## tneicna (May 6, 2019)

kevchuey said:


> I'm out in northern California, though I am very familiar with the tri-state weather. My situation is slightly different in that I'm potentially looking to shift to warmer season grass (I have PRG now) for both heat (my yard has a TON of hot spots from similar window and wall reflection) and drought. PRG is a water sucker, and I really feel bad watering as much as it needs (right now my yard has a ton of dormancy already, which hurts the soul). I know of a golf course or two shifting from PRG to hybrid bermudas as well, which gives me a slight bit of confidence.
> 
> I had been strongly considering the same sets of Bermuda. I actually just bought a pound of Yukon for a test plot. Hadn't considered getting plugs of hybrids (though I really liked the research I went through on Tahoma 31).
> 
> @tneicna How is your Tahoma 31 sod?!?


The SOD farms, locally, sold out of Tahoma 31. I found a supplier, but LTF shipping was $$$$$$$$$$ due to gas prices. So... Right now, going to put it on hold.


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## clbphllps (Aug 20, 2019)

This is a pretty cool thread, I'd love to see how T31 does in that type of climate. I see they're even growing it in Colorado and while it's significantly more arid, it's also is way up in the Rockies!

Maybe those Carolina Turf farms aren't too far of a drive from DC.


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## SouthernTiftuf (12 mo ago)

Following. Check out the lawn tools they had a sod farm in Maryland mail them some T31. Idk it that was just a promotion and they aren't selling it but worth looking into. I wish I remembered the farm name for you.


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## SodGrower (10 mo ago)

Sod Farm here - It's Central Sod Farms of Maryland!!

And here is our listing on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4BGPXMV


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## WillyT (Jun 26, 2019)

I'm impressed that the sod farm is selling Tahoma 31 that far north! I'm excited to follow, holler if you need anything!


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