Area of Adaptation: Areas where other quality turf type perennial ryes are adapted for overseeding or permanent turf.

Variety Description:

Wind Star Perennial Ryegrass was bred and developed by Pure Seed Testing of Hubbard, Oregon and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University.  The variety was originally tested as the experimental variety PST 28M that was selected based on summer performance in New Jersey.  Wind Star is a stable and uniform variety of perennial ryegrass that has been tested and evaluated in several tests including the 1990 NTEP Perennial Ryegrass Test.*  It ranked 16th out of 123 varieties overall in the 1993 NTEP quality ratings with an overall mean rating of 6.0 which was not statistically different from the number one rated variety.

Germplasms from which selections were made for the variety Wind Star was known to contain the endophytic fungus Acremonium loii.  This endophyte has been associated with increased resistance to many harmful insect pests for turf.  Endophyte infected ryegrass is not recommended for forage use..

Wind Star is a very dark blue-green variety that produces a fine textured attractive turf.  Wind Star has shown excellent fall performance, winter color retention, shade tolerance, and good performance under low maintenance conditions for a perennial ryegrass.  It has also exhibited excellent disease resistance, and excellent performance as an overseeding perennial ryegrass in the south.  Wind Star forms a very fine dense turf with a superior brown patch resistance and heat tolerance

Wind Star exhibits many of the same excellent quality performance characteristics of Pennington's other top perennial ryegrass varieties with the added benefit of superior Brown Patch and Red Thread resistance.