Technical


Table 3: Turfgrass Seed 2016 Table L1 data for the cultivar Dylan


cultivar Dylan was tested for the 2016 booklet for lawns, but not for sports and, therefore, was not used in the generation of this classification. Dylan returned the data in L1 shown in Table 3 above. Although it may not be immediately


apparent, these data indicate that Dylan scores highly for shoot density, fineness of leaf, visual merit and cleanness of cut, but is only poorly resistant to red thread and has low winter and summer greenness. Dylan’s scores, fed into the classification, suggest that this cultivar belongs in class F of our example classification. If data obtained for the same cultivars over


several years were to be analysed in this way, then individual cultivars would be found to move around within the space described by the derived axes as shown in Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5; three years of data would present each cultivar as 3 different points that could be joined by a line representing the passage of time. The subsequent classification would then indicate how and to what extent particular cultivars responded, for example, to varying seasonal conditions. Similarly, treating the performance of


cultivars under differing mowing regimes separately, as opposed to pooling them as I have done here, could indicate how and to what extent varying the mowing height affected the performance of groups of cultivars; information that would undoubtedly be of interest and value to many in the industry.


This approach to data analysis is not


especially new and it has been used widely in other fields, notably archaeology and some social sciences where data from very many items is collected and needs to be analysed. What makes it especially possible is that, since the development of these statistical techniques in the middle of the last century, advances in the power of computers allows us to undertake these sorts of analyses on very large data sets indeed. In this respect, the possibilities afforded by the many years of turfgrass evaluation that have taken place to date are especially exciting. I look forward to analysing the Turfgrass


Seed data more fully in this way and, hopefully, the resulting classification will be of practical value to many in the turfgrass industry.


Dr Tim Lodge, Agrostis Turf Consultancy


The Turfgrass Seed booklet for 2017 may be downloaded from the BSPB website.


Dr Tim Lodge, Director, Agrostis Turf Consultancy Ltd.


www.agrostis.co.uk


102 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017


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