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Abstract
Zoysiagrass (Zoysia spp.) is an important warm-season turfgrass with varying drought resistance ability compared to other warm-season grasses and is becoming increasingly popular in Southeastern United States. With the increasing water shortages and imposed water restrictions in landscape irrigation, aggravated by frequent drought incidents, studying how warm-season turfgrasses respond to drought stress has become imperative. Zoysiagrass genotypes were tested for their drought avoidance ability based on morphological and physiological above-and belowground traits under drought stress conditions in both greenhouse and field environments. Genotypes differed for their drought avoidance traits like total root biomass, root to shoot ratio, relative water content, visual turf quality, evapotranspiration, and photosynthetic assimilation rates. The best performing genotypes used water more efficiently by stomatal regulation and maintained evapotranspiration rates, whereas poor performing genotypes, despite better root growth, had greater water use rates and experienced most drought symptoms on the final day of stress.INDEX WORDS: Drought avoidance, Evapotranspiration, Root Length Density, Root to Shoot ratio