# Turf Blue HGT & SPF-30 Test



## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Finished overseeding the yard with a 50/50 blend of Barenbrug's Turf Blue HGT and SPF-30 Hybrid Texas/Kentucky Bluegrass from Outside Pride.

There have been several threads around growing KBG in the transition zone & warm season board with both of these products being used. In addition to growing some peat pots for later repairs, I'm growing some test pots as well. HGT is the pictured in the back-center. SPF-30 is pictured front center. Here are the details:


One pot each of HGT w/ Yellow Jacket only, SPF-30 only, 50/50 HGT/SPF blend

Location: Hampton Roads, Virginia (Zone 7b-8a)

Soil: sourced directly from lawn

Shade: Moderate. ~3hrs direct sun

Input post germination:

Irrigation: Zero. Natural precipitation only

Fertilizer: Variable. As needed by lawn

Fungicide: None

*Note: Will transfer from peat pot to larger clay pot when appropriate


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## L337pcnoob (Jul 2, 2020)

Following good luck!!


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## Passat774 (Oct 9, 2018)

Local and subscribed


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## Bigdrumnc (Mar 28, 2019)

Where did You purchase the hgt In Hampton roads?


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

@Bigdrumnc I ordered online from Stout Seed. Also...the big drum running??

Day 5 germination on both SPF-30 and HGT


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## Bigdrumnc (Mar 28, 2019)

The drum are in full swing in the sound right now!


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## MikeyVA (Jul 5, 2019)

Following this.

I am overseeding with hgt this weekend after southern belle suffering from constant fungus issues. Lost 3/4 of the lawn in August. Only thing remaining is the spf30 that was in the mix. How is the germination on the overseed?


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

@Bigdrumnc man I love blackened redfish on the grill. Got a few the last time out. I'll take them over trout any day.



@MikeyVA at week 2 and there is good germination. I would say good, not great. I leveled the lawn prior to overseeding and we later had a heavy rain. Some areas were left with predominately sand at the surface. It seems to have formed a crust.

Although I scarified before seeding and have watered 4 x daily it seems those areas are just not coming in. I went out yesterday and scratched with a garden rake put down a little more by hand. I will likely need to do the same in other areas and lightly top dress.

Areas where I had dead grass and/or good soil all have sprouts. Bear in mind I can't tell if it's SPF-30 or HGT, but the test pots lead me to believe it's both.


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## Bigdrumnc (Mar 28, 2019)

Ordered my triple threat plus from southern seed today for my over-seed. I Toying with the idea of adding 5 pounds of turf blue hgt in the mix.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

9.20.20 - Moved test pots from peat pots to their forever homes in terra cotta. One pot for HGT, one for SPF-30, and one for a blend of two. Will see which one spreads the fastest

Top growth looks the same. SPF-30 looks like it _might _have slight deeper rooting at this point.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Definitely some spreading going on. You can see the some little sprouts coming up far away from the center.

Looks like the blended pot (back left) is doing the best.


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

Wow, I just found this thread and am excited to see how this turns out! Keep us posted!

I've started a similar experiment of my own which will be one of my "winter projects".


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## Nashvillerookie (Aug 10, 2020)

I sodded with HGT three weeks ago. Looking forward to your results. As an aside, can anyone recommend a new-sod liquid fertilizer. I applied pgf complete prior to laying the sod.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Very cool! Keep us up to speed


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

I have a thread in the cool season forum for some HGT and SPF-30 test pots. Noticed something interesting yesterday and wanted to share. Looks like there is some wilting in the HGT and blended pots, but none in the SPF-30 pot.

Note: The overseed this year was a blend of the two and there's no noticeable wilting. Also looks like the wilting is in the middle of both pots, which strikes me as odd.

Not sure it has anything to do with HGT, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. See second pic.


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

@Captquin I did my own experiment with grass seeds which include these two. The HGT germinated in 10 days, the SPF-30 in 12 days. However, I am now 24 days since planting and the SPF-30 has a greater amount of germinated seed than the HGT.

Interestingly HGT is the one which claims fast germination, but was only 2 days faster than the SPF-30. Granted these pots are in the controlled environment inside my house. Who knows, I might see a greater disparity in germination time outside with real temperature and moisture swings.

As the saying goes, YMMV.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Interesting for sure. Mine are in a fairly shaded area. I only water if absolutely necessary, far less than I would do the lawn.

Interested to see if there's any recovery.


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## Trader Jay (Dec 14, 2020)

Any updates? I am curious. Thanks.


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## jda989 (Aug 14, 2020)

About to start a mini lawn Reno on a 5k sqft portion of my 15k sqft backyard. Wanted to only commit to a manageable section since Spring is coming and it isn't the most optimal time to plant cool season grass in zone 8a. Going with Fescue as the primary grass and 10-15% KBG. And it's difficult to choose a KBG seed and feel confident it will hold up well enough here with the heat and humidity, but I do have irrigation so I may be able to counter some of the heat at least. I was considering both of these varieties so I look forward to seeing how they do for you. I've also considered adding a small amount of Turf Star RPR to the mix to get quick germination to help hold the other seed in place.


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## jeffcatton (Oct 15, 2019)

jda989 said:


> About to start a mini lawn Reno on a 5k sqft portion of my 15k sqft backyard. Wanted to only commit to a manageable section since Spring is coming and it isn't the most optimal time to plant cool season grass in zone 8a. Going with Fescue as the primary grass and 10-15% KBG. And it's difficult to choose a KBG seed and feel confident it will hold up well enough here with the heat and humidity, but I do have irrigation so I may be able to counter some of the heat at least. I was considering both of these varieties so I look forward to seeing how they do for you. I've also considered adding a small amount of Turf Star RPR to the mix to get quick germination to help hold the other seed in place.


@jda989 HI, I use KBG-SPF30 from https://www.outsidepride.com/seed/grass-seed/bluegrass-seed/kentucky-bluegrass-hybrid.html

I am in DFW TX and we have 100+ days in the summer, mine has held up without any issues to the high heat ... stays very cool in the hot summer. I have posted in this forum under https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9273

There is a lot of success posted in TX with this grass seed. It is a great time of year to be thinking about doing it.

Hope that help and good luck !

Jeff


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Here they are at present. Not a lot of growth this time of year but they are holding color well. This is a shady area, so performing well from that standpoint.

The most interesting thing is the plugs I put in the HGT and Blended pots spread then appeared to die out. You can see the "holes" in the first two pots. Top pot is SPF30 only and no such issue. This hasn't happened in the yard and obviously the HGT wasn't concentrated in that one spot in the Blended pot, so I can't draw any conclusions.

Real test will be summer.


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## Cdub5_ (Jun 12, 2019)

Geez look at the color!
Im new to KBG so I'm still not use to how dark green it gets


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Looking forward to this summer and seeing how the teat pots do. All three were green through winter and are growing rapidly now.

For some reason, I decided to look underneath and noticed something interesting. The pots with SPF-30 (solo and blend) seemed to have more roots coming out through the drain hole.

Maybe it puts out deeper roots which makes it more drought tolerant, maybe it's nothing at all.

Left is SPF-30, right is HGT.



Back to front: SPF-30, HGT, Blend


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

Interesting. I did a similar winter experiment and the SPF-30 had a better germination rate than the HGT which also had weeds germinate in it. Hmmm.

At some point, I'm going to drought all my samples to see which pouts first.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Upper 80's with no rain this past week and neither is happy about it.


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## steffen707 (Apr 9, 2021)

the spf-30 still looks better.


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

They're still looking pretty good - much better than my samples right now.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

1.25" of rain after three weeks of drought. Not sure they can recover. One negative about the clay pots is that they allow soil moisture to migrate to the sides and evaporate. That doesn't happen in nature where the only evaporation is on the soil and leaf surface. Maybe I should have used plastic pots. In any case, we shall see if they bounce back


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

Or you should have watered when they started browning out.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Deadlawn said:


> Or you should have watered when they started browning out.


Why? I already know it looks when irrigated. I have yard full of it. Goal was to see if one outperformed the other with zero input.


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

Captquin said:


> Deadlawn said:
> 
> 
> > Or you should have watered when they started browning out.
> ...


Did you notice any of the samples browning out before the others. I have a bunch of samples and they are now mostly dead, but a few have some green blades left. Smaller containers, so less room to hold water between waterings.

I'm convinced you need to baby just about anything for a full year after germination, although full sun areas more so. It's not helping we're getting early warm dry weather here this year.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Believe you are right. I have some 3" pots growing now but they're meant to transplant if I need something bigger than the proplugger.

I noticed a little. There's a pic from early May where they are starting to needle. I think the SPF looked slightly better.

The biggest things I've noticed thus far is the roots on the SPF went deeper, HGT seems to have a more aggressive spreading habit, and both have better color than expected.

No idea on disease pressure, save the NTEP data. I like the idea of having the SPF in anyway so there's some genetic diversity with the Texas bluegrass.

Fun stuff


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

Well I did my own even more unscientific experiment. I say even more unscientific because life happened and I neglected the samples for awhile. I meant to expose them to heat and drought and then water before they went totally dead. See photo:



Interestingly, as you can see in the attached photo, the one that is showing the most life is guess what? 4 right, 2 down on the grid - The Barrenbrug Turf Blue HGT!!! The one above it (4 right, 1 down) is the HGT and as you can see, it is clinging on to dear life. Two samples (4 right, 3 down and 5 right, 3 down) are hard fescue and Cardinal II creeping red fescue.

Note that the only one of the tall fescue samples that still show any life is the KY-31 (2 right, 1 down), all the other tall fescue samples are DEAD. This seems to contradict the long held belief that tall fescue is the most heat and drought tolerant grass. Although I have a feeling tall fescue's ability to thrive in these harsh environments had to do with its ability to sink deep roots which it obviously can't do in a pot sample.

Not sure how true this is, but elsewhere on this forum, someone said that bluegrass will turn brown and go dormant under harsh conditions, but won't die. Tall fescue on the other hand can sink deep roots to find water, but if it is dry enough that it can't find it, it doesn't have the ability to go dormant and will just die. Now let me just say that I have never seen this theory documented anywhere in a fact sheet or a cooperative extension.

But anyway, yesterday I gave my parched samples a big deluge and let them sit in the tray full of water until the soil was saturated, then I drained it.

On the right side of the grid, I did samples of white clover, strawberry clover, birdfoot trefoil, alfalfa and creeping thyme. The strawberry clover (5-2) and the alfalfa (6-2) are still alive. The others - DEAD.

Watch this space.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

Here are pots I had in the greenhouse that I plan to use if needed for repairs. Took them out the other day and maybe it was too much sun too quickly, but they don't look super happy.


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

Captquin said:


> Here are pots I had in the greenhouse that I plan to use if needed for repairs. Took them out the other day and maybe it was too much sun too quickly, but they don't look super happy.


Ha! That's the color of a good part of my lawn now! Granted the blades are thicker, which is the one good sign. Giving it a good watering at least once a week seems to be stalling its demise, and it is actually showing some growth again.

We are in a first stage of water restrictions here, so we are only allowed to water lawns once a week and it must be before 9am or after 5pm. Never mind the guy down the road has obviously ignored the restrictions. I see his lawn sprinkler on almost every day watering a good part of the driveway along with the grass!


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## traderntexas (Jul 20, 2019)

Captquin said:


> 1.25" of rain after three weeks of drought. Not sure they can recover. One negative about the clay pots is that they allow soil moisture to migrate to the sides and evaporate. That doesn't happen in nature where the only evaporation is on the soil and leaf surface. Maybe I should have used plastic pots. In any case, we shall see if they bounce back


How did each grass recover?


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## situman (Nov 3, 2020)

Captquin said:


> Here are pots I had in the greenhouse that I plan to use if needed for repairs. Took them out the other day and maybe it was too much sun too quickly, but they don't look super happy.


Looks hungry to me.


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## Captquin (Aug 22, 2019)

traderntexas said:


> Captquin said:
> 
> 
> > 1.25" of rain after three weeks of drought. Not sure they can recover. One negative about the clay pots is that they allow soil moisture to migrate to the sides and evaporate. That doesn't happen in nature where the only evaporation is on the soil and leaf surface. Maybe I should have used plastic pots. In any case, we shall see if they bounce back
> ...


One survived and is thriving today. Unhelpfully, it was the blended pot with both HGT and SPF.


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