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The use of tall fescue is increasing in the European transition zone because of its inherent tolerance to heat and drought stresses. Climate change, as expressed by more frequent drought occurrences, presents a challenge for selecting appropriate turfgrass cultivars. A field study was conducted at the Experimental Agricultural Farm of the University of Padova (Legnaro, Italy) to assess the response of 20 tall fescue cultivars grown without irrigation for 2 years (with a single emergency irrigation application in Jul 2022). The cultivars were evaluated every 2 weeks from Mar 2021 to Mar 2023 to determine the texture, uniformity, density, color, quality, green turf cover, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The cultivars tested were Bullseye, Darlington II, Detonate LS, Forlaine, Grande II, Lexington, Melya-ne, PPG-TF238, PPG-TF254, PPG-TF315, PPG-TF336, RGT Nuance, Rhambler SRP, Talladega II, Thor, Thunderstruck, Tough, Triad, Turfway, and ZRC-1. The results confirmed the ability of tall fescue species to tolerate drought stress as imposed within the parameters of this field study. For all cultivars, a slight decrease in quality was observed only in the summer of the second year under severe drought conditions. The inherent low cold tolerance of tall fescue compared with that of other cool-season species observed for all the study cultivars resulted in lower quality, color, and uniformity during the winter, but density was maintained throughout the entire study period. The best-performing cultivars based on quality, NDVI, and green turf cover were PPG-TF336, Triad, and ZRC-1. Therefore, tall fescue provides a sustainable solution for amenity turfgrass lawns in water deficit climates, and turf-type tall fescue cultivars with the desired characteristics of optimum quality and drought tolerance should be considered for lawns with the European transition zone.

Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) is one of the most widely used species for sports fields in temperate climates because of its high wear tolerance. However, wear tolerance of cultivars may vary according to local environmental conditions and turfgrass management. In this study, we evaluated the wear tolerance of six perennial ryegrass cultivars (Adagio, Apple SGL, Equate, Firebird, Principal 2, Tetradark) under two fertility treatments (100 or 200 kg N⋅ha−1⋅yr−1) over 2 years. The field trial was performed at the Experimental Agricultural Farm at the University of Padova in northeastern Italy in a silty loam soil. Plots were arranged in a randomized complete block with three replications and subjected to three traffic events per week using a sports field wear simulator. Turfgrass quality (TQ), percent green cover (PGC), and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were recorded every 2 weeks and averaged over each month. Although perennial ryegrass cultivars responded differently to wear stress, the higher nitrogen (N) rate positively affected the TQ of them all. ‘Tetradrak’ and ‘Equate’ had the lowest TQ, especially during the active growing seasons (spring and autumn). However, ‘Tetradark’ was particularly negatively affected during the cool fall months. The impact of a higher N fertilization rate on PGC and NDVI appeared to be more pronounced in spring than in fall. Furthermore, slight differences among cultivars and treatments were observed in summer and winter when temperatures were a limiting growth factor.