The Cameroonian flora has a very high biodiversity that remains largely
unexplored. It contains many grasses that can be used for sports lawns, but are
currently underutilized. In order to contribute to the improvement of the
quality of sports lawns, nine local grass taxa from the agro-ecological zone
with bimodal rainfall in Cameroon were evaluated for their potential for
sporting use in natural lawns. The method of the Study and Control Group for
Varieties and Seeds was used to evaluate the sports lawn characteristics of the
taxa. The resistance to trampling and pulling, the density of the lawn, and the
aesthetic appearance, which are factors in calculating the sports index, were
monitored at two sites, including the experimental space at the University of Yaounde
1 in the Center region and Kagnol 2 in the East region, from January 2017 to
January 2020. The monthly lawn characteristic data allowed for the differentiation
between the means and the determination of the sports index of the taxa
compared to commercialized lawn varieties. The sports index of the evaluated
taxa varied: Cynodondactylon (6.989), Eleusineindica (6.338), Sporobolusnatalensis (6.301), Cynodon cf Cynodondactylon (6.257), Eragrostistremula (5.939), Sporoboluspyramidalis (5.583), Agrostisrupestris (5.335), Axonopuscompressus (4.991), and Digitaria sp. (4.544). These results show that these grass taxa
have potential for sporting use in lawn mixtures at different levels of sports
disciplines.
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