Effect of some soil media types and growth regulators on lolium perenne

The present study was designed to explore the possibility of growing Lolium perenne turf grass in sandy amended soils rather than clay soil. In addition to reducing the expensive costs and time consumption due to frequent clipping by the application of some growth retardants. Four growing media types were tested (clay, sand, sand / clay and sand / compost). While cycocel and alar were foliar sprayed, three times at four weeks intervals at the concentrations of 1000 and 2000 ppm for each one.
Growing Lolium perenne in clay soil greatly and significantly gave rise to the four tested vegetative growth parameters (plant height, covering density % and fresh and dry weights) as well as, the three photosynthetic pigments over the other three growing media types. On the other hand, sandy soil resulted consistently, in the lowest values, while the two amended sandy soil gave intermediate records.
The four growth retardant treatments caused a considerable reduction in plant height and fresh and dry weights of the clippings, while resulted in remarkable increase in covering density % as well as, stimulated photosynthetic pigments. Meanwhile, alar proved to be more effective than cycocel in this concern.
The interaction between growing media types and growth retardant treatments was almost significant for different vegetative growth parameters and photosynthetic pigments.
It is recommended to grow Lolium perenne turf grass in sand / compost (2 : 1 v/v) amended growing media with the supplement of triple applications of alar at 2000 ppm in order to obtain reasonable reduction in plant height, along with a desirable and fast covering density % .