Twenty‐eight cultivars of orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) were screened for their reaction to a single isolate of Stagonospora arenaria Sacc. in two inoculation tests. On a scale of 1 (no disease) to 8 (very severe), the overall disease means of cultivars ranged from 3.97 to 5.90. There were significant differences in disease reaction among cultivar means. There was a highly significant correlation (r = 0.82) for disease means between the two inoculations. Although none of the cultivars were highly resistant to purple leafspot, cultivars varied widely in numbers of individual plants that were judged to be resistant on the basis of their low disease ratings. Plants selected for low ratings were compared with randomly selected plants within each cultivar in a third inoculation. Within each cultivar, the mean rating of the selected group was lower than the random group, thus confirming the resistance of selected plants. The best plants are being intercrossed in an attempt to develop lines of orchardgrass with resistance to purple leafspot.