Muhlenbergia capillaris 'Irvine'

Muhlenbergia capillaris ‘Irvine’ Plumetastic® in October 2019 at South Coast REC showing its wine blooms just beginning to show. Photo: SK Reid.

Summary

South Coast Research & Extension Center (South Coast REC/SCREC) is located in Irvine California, this site has a sandy loam soil and plants are irrigated with reclaimed water. More information about the field sites is located in the Nuts & Bolts section.

Researchers planted #1-sized material at both sites in October 2017. During the establishment period in Davis most of the plants struggled and roughly half of the plants failed by March 2019. Based on the remaining number of plants and the variation in vigor and appearance, researchers did not collect data on Plumetastic® in Davis. We previously evaluated another M. capillaris cultivar at the Davis site, ‘White Cloud’, and had similar results. We would be interested in evaluating either this cultivar or another M. capillaris cultivar with spring planting to determine if the timing of planting (i.e. fall vs. spring) has an impact on survival and performance, and to clarify if this species is or is not suitable for this area and/or perhaps our heavy soil, as both our soil and climate are quite unlike the region where the species is native (the southeastern U.S.).

The performance of this cultivar in Irvine was quite different than in Davis. Although this plant performed acceptably on low water, with the overall appearance on this treatment reaching “very good” by October, this plant performed best on high water in Irvine. Growth, flowering, and foliage quality were all significantly higher on high water at some point in the season (Table 13a, Figure 8a). Unfortunately, flowering started to take off roughly a month after the last open house, so attendees never got to see this cultivar at its best. Participant ratings at open houses in Irvine increased through the seasons as growth increased (Table 13b). The final mid-October ratings were collected by researchers as flowering was starting to hit its stride, and the mean floral score ranged from three to four depending on the treatment. If our protocols allowed, we would have liked to collect data for several more months to get a better picture of this grass’s best feature. Based on the data collected, Plumetastic® may be grown successfully on low water in zone 3, though to obtain best results irrigating on high water should be considered. It should also be noted that this grass was tolerant of reclaimed water.

Growth and Quality Data

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