New drought-resistant bermuda grass created by UC Riverside

UC Riverside and a Riverside-based sod company have teamed up to sell a new drought-resistant bermuda grass.

The grass, called Coachella, is a less thirsty, greener-longer hybrid of bermuda grass.

The university’s Office of Technology Partnerships and West Coast Turf hope to initially target golf courses and sports stadiums that need large amounts of real grass.

It is the first bermuda grass to come from the university’s turfgrass breeding program, which was rebooted in 2012 after a long hiatus, a UCR news release states. It is the UC system’s only turfgrass program.

The grass “exhibits our targeted traits of improved winter color retention, exemplary drought resistance above and beyond most existing bermuda grass cultivars and, of course, exceptional quality characteristics,” Jim Baird, a UCR professor and cooperative extension specialist in turfgrass science, said in the Monday, Nov. 25, release.

When UCR develops turfgrass, it’s looking at several factors: pest tolerance, drought tolerance, how well it spreads, and its recovery from environmental and human impacts, the release states.

But Baird said in the release that the biggest factor behind Coachella was the development of what he called “winter color retention.”

“Californians don’t like brown or dormant grass; warm-season grasses like bermuda grass turn in the winter months,” Baird said in the release. “Coachella is a significant step in the right direction in terms of maintaining better turf color and quality year-round with a lot less water. Essentially, we now have turfgrasses that use as little or less water than the so-called lawn replacement plants or groundcovers.”

Bermuda grass requires about 40% less water than tall fescue, the most common lawn grass in California, in the heat of the summer. The Coachella bermuda grass hybrid offers an additional 15 to 25% water savings from most other bermuda grass cultivars.

The grass will be sold as sheets of sod or sprigs. For every square foot of sod or bushel of sprigs sold, UCR will receive a royalty based on a percentage of sales.

It will be early 2026 before West Coast Turf can offer Coachella turf to homeowners. It will be available either directly through West Coast Turf, or through big-box stores and other retailers.