A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUIZ THAT PUNISHES GUESSING
By Curt Harler
We all know how tough life used to be: Walking five miles to class through chin-high snow drifts… uphill both ways.
Being in Dr. Beth Guertal’s classes at Auburn can be just as
daunting. We’ll tell you right up front that, to get this
multiple-choice answer correct, you need to know something about all
four of the possible answers. Guertal’s question to her turf students:
Which of the following is a true statement about Tifway hybrid bermudagrass?
A. Not used much anymore in Alabama, TifSport has largely replaced it
B. Viable seed is available
C. Also widely known as 419
D. An intraspecific hybrid
“This is sort of a ‘two tier’ multiple-choice question,” she
notes. “It is two-tier for the following reasons: 1) every question is
correct for some other grass, (in other words, none of my false answers
for a questions are invented nonsense, and thus sometimes a student can
‘back into’ the correct answer); and, 2) to pick the correct answer a
student also has to know other information, such as what an
intraspecific hybrid is.”
The correct answer, Guertal reveals, is ‘C’. In many parts of the
Southeast, folks know Tifway by the other name of ‘419’. Sometimes
people put it together: ‘Tifway 419.’
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| Eric Klaypas inspects the Tifway at Auburn University. Photo courtesy Auburn. |
“It is important that students know both names and that they are the
same grass – often a client only knows one name or the other,” she says.
Because Tifway is an interspecific hybrid (cross of two different
bermudagrass species, typically
Cynodon dactylon and
Cynodon transvaalensis)
it is sterile, and thus does not produce viable seed. It must be
propagated via sprigs or sod. That is why options B and D are incorrect.
An intraspecific hybrid is a cross between two (or more) bermudagrasses
of the same species (these are also known as synthetics). An easy way
to keep these straight is that “intraspecific” has an ‘a’ in it, just
like the word ‘same’, and ”interspecific” has an ‘e’ in it, just like
the word ‘different.” Answer A is wrong because Tifway is still widely
sold and used throughout the Southeast.
