Zoysiagrass plant named ‘Zeon’

#The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of a Zoysiagrass plant. The plant is a progeny that was discovered by David Doguet of Poteet, Tex., of a zoysiagrass plant in a collection of plants from Kobe, Japan made by Jack Murray (deceased). From these progenies, as seeds, were grown a collection of plants from which David Doguet discovered the single plant that was later cloned into sod and called ‘Zeon’. Another zoysiagrass discovered by David Doguet, the variety ‘JaMur’, is the subject of the co-pending U.S. Patent Application, having Ser. No. 09/059,591.

#For purposes of registration under the “International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants” (generally known by its French acronym as the UPOV Convention) and noting Section 1612 of the Manual of Patent Examination Procedures, the new variety of zoysia grass of the present invention is named ‘Zeon’.

#The new zoysiagrass ‘Zeon’ possess high stolon frequency, good color, vertical posture, short stolon blade length, good perimeter stolon length, and short internode length. The blade length is about 6 cm long, having a width of about 4 mm. Mature plant height is from 6 to 12 cm.

#FIG. 1 is a photograph of an ‘Emerald’ plant on the left and a ‘Zeon’ plant on the right.

#FIG. 2 is a photograph of ‘Zeon’ solid sod.

#FIG. 3 is a photograph of three varieties of zoysiagrass plants with ‘Zeon’ on the left, ‘Omni’ center, and ‘JaMur’ on the right.

#‘Zeon’ was characterized in greenhouse and field conditions and is a unique variety of zoysia grass developed as described above. ‘Zeon’ has been propagated by stolon cuttings in Poteet, Tex. and all traits of the plant have been found to be stable through successive generations of asexual propagation.

#The grass was planted in 1996 and grown in Carbondale, Ill. as part of the National Zoysiagrass Test conducted by the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP). ‘Zeon’ ranked higher in turf quality than ‘Emerald’ (unpatented) or ‘Meyer’ (unpatented) with color the same as ‘Emerald’ and ‘Meyer’, and, as seen in Table 1, has texture similar to that of ‘Emerald’ and finer than that of ‘Meyer’. Further shown in Table 1, the thickness of thatch for ‘Zeon’ was less than all other cultivars shown other than for ‘JaMur’ and the posture of ‘Zeon’ is shown to be quite vertical.

#TABLE 1 Traits of Selected Zoysiagrass Cultivars — Planted 1996, data 1997 and 2001, Carbondale, Illinois. Stolon Sod Stolon Length Spread Freq. Texture cm/m cm 9 = most 9 = finest ‘Chinese Common’ 127.1 2.7 7 2.0 ‘El Toro’ 311.6 4.9 9 4.3 ‘JaMur’ 426.5 4.7 9 5.7 ‘Meyer’ 48.6 2.2 5 7.3 ‘Emerald’ 91.2 1.3 5 8.3 ‘Zeon’ 372.0 1.2 5 9.0 LSD 0.05 52.6 0.7 Avg. Thatch Posture Stolon 9 = least 9 = vertical Lgth cm ‘Chinese Common’ 2 6 14.66 ‘El Toro’ 4 8 17.38 ‘JaMur’ 9 4 17.42 ‘Meyer’ 3 9 5.55 ‘Emerald’ 1 7 6.56 ‘Zeon’ 8 8 11.60 LSD 0.05 4.92