Effects of light intensity on morphological change and lawn quality of wild Cynodon dactylon

In order to provide reasons for developing and using wild Cynodon dactylon germplasm resources, the morphological changes of aerial parts of 4 germplasms of wild C.dactylon under diffirent light intensities were compared with Tifway 419 (an introduced variety of C.dactylon) in this study. The effects of light intensities on their lawn qualities were also evaluated. The results showed that when the illumination was reduced from 100% to 68.0% and 38.5%, the erect stem height, the stem internode length and the leaf length increased and the leaf size enlarged. There were negative correlations between light intensities and above modalities. The stem diameter and the leaf width decreased, which had positive correlations with light intensities. The lawn qualities of wild C.dactylon were downgraded due to the morphological changes of the stems and leaves. The changes on the stems and leaves of C.dactylon G1 and G4 were the minimum so that their lawn qualities were higher with strong shadetolerance. However, the stems and leaves of C.dactylon G3 were changed much under different light intensities, so its lawn quality was the worst among the four germplasms.