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K-State Turf and Landscape Blog

Chilling causes stylish zebra striped bermudagrass, and Megan’s retire-early money-making fashion scheme

Who is this fashionable guy?  We’ll get to that in a sec…

 

 

 

Thanks to Holly Dickman, Ellis County Horticulture Agent, for sending in the lawn photos.  Holly came across some bermudagrass with these very funky stripes. What causes this? This is caused by frost damage. Why the squiggles? I can’t find it now, but several years ago I stumbled across an article by some physicists where they modeled heat fluxes/temperature and came up with a model to describe how and why this happens. It was full of big scary equations I did not understand.  Will there be lasting damage? No – this is a temporary condition, and the lawn will even out and go uniformly dormant as cool fall temperatures become more consistent.

Then, I had a thought – why not capitalize on this funky pattern? I have seen very interested plaids, stripes, etc., when it comes to golf attire. So I quickly came up with my prototype above. I’m off to the patent office – I’m sure I’ll be raking in the big-time money pretty soon 🙂