OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Lawn Care & Maintenance Seeding QLD Blue Couch? Some different turf-types

Hey guys I'm a bit random when it comes to lawns I'm constantly changing my back lawn because I get bored of the cultivar and as is the nature of my work (I'm a turf researcher for the Sports Turf Research Institute - STRI) I'm always looking for the next best thing and something different to look after. At my place I have Zoysia matrella (ShadeTuff) heavily shaded and mown at an inch, palmetto inside my fence out the front and out the back I am constantly changing the turf.

I have tried many different methods (seeding and sprigging) and all have been successful in establishment, to give you an idea what I have had on my back lawn in the past 4-5 odd years.
Aussie Blue couch planted as runners (Struggled with shade) and had to mow high with a rotary.

Sprayed out and seeded Princess 77 couch @ 10g/m2 (Struggled with shade)

Perennial Ryegrass and Chewings Fescue oversown at 4kg/100m2 over Princess 77 in the cooler months (easy to take through a Brisbane winter, struggles with heat and humidity as soon as it gets to early October unless on preventative fungicide treatments and syringing daily to cool the plant. Also note the pee marks from my blue cattle dog.

Had the large tree removed in my backyard as it snapped halfway up the trunk in a big storm. Sprayed out rye and used scarifier to bring couch back in that summer and following winter overseeded with RPR ryegrass.

Brought couch back in over summer and this winter I'm trying a mix made mostly of Kentucky Bluegrass with some ryegrass and creeping red fescue


The ultimate question was, what cultivar should I put in? I'm going to spray everything out this spring/summer and just stick with one grass and never oversow with a cool season as I'm over the work (I do it all day as a job and don't want to do it out the back when I get home from work all the time anymore). I have cut down the tree out the back so I now get full sun. Also we don't get the dormancy that you guys down south get; our average minimum temps have barely dropped below 13�C this winter. So I was thinking of sprigging a warm season cultivar most likely Santa Ana but then I changed my mind...

I'm now steering clear of that as I don't want to be smashing it with fungicide once we get our humid summer (seems to struggle with Pythium sp. on my research plots along with a lot of its seeded and vegetative competitors) so I was going to seed QLD Blue Couch (Digitaria didactyla). Once more I don't have to invest in a grooming reel for a Scott Bonnar conversion as you don't need to groom with QLD Blue couch. Has anyone tried seeding QLD blue couch before? I have only ever grown it from sod, plugs and runners. I have maintained it, read a lot of info on it and done spray trials on Blue Couch but have struggled to find any information on seeding QLD Blue Couch other than vague seed company guidelines. Any help would be much appreciated.

I reckon some of you reel mower lovers down south; particularly Sydney, would love QLD Blue Couch for your lawn as it doesn't thatch, even when mown without a catcher. Its relatively drought tolerant, quite similar in management to the green couch and green couch hybrids but it stripes up so much more easily. It is a lot more disease tolerant particularly in humid areas compared to the couches as well and once more its not rhizomatous which means it only runs from stolons (i.e on soil surface) which means if you keep a nice clean edge it doesn't run into your garden beds. The only factors it misses out on is the cool tolerance (which is why it is awesome for Brisbane) and its poor herbicide tolerance to selective grass herbicides like DSMA (which if you use pre-emerg right isn't a big deal).

Any help on seeding QLD Blue couch would be awesome, and if anyone wants any info feel free to give us a yell.

Cheers
Will

Wow, you've done a lot of work there!

Unfortunately I can't help you with Qld Blue. I really wanted to put it at my place but I rang a few seed companies in the Northern States and they all recommended I just stick to Santa Ana here in SA if I wanted a low cut lawn. Funnily enough, most seed companies tried to steer me away from Princess 77 also, I have no idea why?? But I really love the colour of Qld Blue. Either way I'd love to see your progress and results.

Good Luck!

Hi Wally,

Nice work on the lawns there. I have thought about spraying out some of my lawn and trying something different, and one that I am really interested in is Seashore Paspalum. Not many vegetative cultivators in Aus, but I have read some interesting things on Seaspray which is a seeded variety.

http://www.seasprayinfo.com/

Simon

Hey Wally,

Once you find the qld blue couch seed company please let me know, now I know you work at the research facility at Cleveland. You could try the produce shop at Capalaba they might be able be able to put you on to their seed supplier.

Looking forward to hearing from you


Joey

Hey Guys,
Cheers for the feedback. Hit up advanced seed online store they are selling pure blue couch seed at the moment for $195.00 for 2kg which would do 200m2. https://www.aussielawns.com.au/content/111#/Product/info/ALQBLC2
After more research the cost is much cheaper than the $6-$8/m2 for sod. I'm just going to try the same method as seeded green couch which I think will work. Spray out, cultivate, level and roll, scarify for rills, seed and topdress with 5mm across surface and roll. So if its 100m2 topdress with 100 x 0.005 = 0.5m3. Worked well for all other warmseason seeded varieties.

I'd stick with your Santa Ana SimRice its so much nicer. About the only advantage of the paspalum is a more visible stripe at lower cutting heights although you can't cut as low as a hybrid Bermuda(we never cut below 3.2mm). They are a lot slower if you putt on them as well as paspalum leaves have a waxy cuticle. I have played around with seaspray before, it is quite similar to seeding green couch. I found up here it tends to get dollar spot really bad as soon as we get the humid cloudy storm conditions in summer time. You probably wouldn't get that in your drier climate down in Adelaide. Despite a lot of the reports too, it is as hungry as green couch. Another factor is it can be hard to spray out other grass weeds as it isn't tolerant to the organo-arsenate chemicals (DSMA and MSMA)and chemicals like fluaziflop that you can use on the zoysia matrellas making it hard to bring in if you want a pure sward. We used to spray a salt solution on the blue and green couch in a hope to remove them from paspalum.

Cheers

Just a question Wally

Could you please tell me what carpet grass is

Hey Joeyvek,
Carpet Grass forms into 2 main species: Broadleaf Carpet Grass (Axonopus compressus) and Narrow Leaf Carpet Grass (Axonopus fissifolius). People often get confused and call it Buffalo (Stenotaphrum secundatum) (Australian Buffalo) when it isn't and performs quite different in its response to various stresses such as drought etc. In Brisbane you will most likely find Carpetgrass growing in the shade or in a wet/boggy area of your lawn and sometimes quite acidic soil (low ph) (I have seen it growing around the 3-4 ph mark in North QLD and SE asia). If you go up to North QLD it is everywhere. Narrow Leaf carpet grass grows on most roadside verges and invades a lot of community sportsfields up in Brisbane and often gets confused with the weedy paspalums (notatum and dilatatum).

This is broadleaf carpet grass


This is narrowleaf carpet grass


If you don't mind it that's cool (I have seen it reel mown on fairways in SE asia its called 'Cow Grass') and it looks sweet. If you want to spray it out and you have green couch use DSMA or MSMA but if you have a blue couch lawn these will kill it. For Blue Couch use Bromoxynil (this may or may not work I have read it in a paper before). The other options are hand weeding or non-selective herbicide (round up) and growing in what you desire. Remember though most lawns are not a monoculture from the environment and cultural practices they are placed under. Weeds can often paint a picture as to what may be happening underneath in your profile. I.e your soil may be compact, pooling water on the surface making it conducive to the Carpet Grass Growth.

Cheers

Thanks wally89

Wally, How do you think the blue couch will perform in the shade(although you dont have much left) compared to green couch?

I used to have blue couch but sprayed out and put in wintergreen sod. After 3-4 years there is a mix now of blue couch that has come back through. We always had blue couch as kids growing up in brisbane and its soft feel with no thatch is great but the colour of winter green is much darker/deeper. I looked into removing the blue couch bits with DSMA but got a little scared when reading the hazardous info labels. Any concerns with DSMA i should be worried about in a domestic situation with small kids frequenting the lawns?

The back yard gets a lot of winter shade so have been letting the blue couch completely take over in the hope it out performs the green couch.