Grazing ryegrass, also known as English ryegrass and perennial Chaff, is a herbaceous plant belonging to the flowering genus Chaff, which, in turn, belong to the family of cereals.
This herbaceous perennial plant lives in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. Sometimes, if not strange, perennial ryegrass can be found in the regions of eastern Asia, right up to Western Siberia.
Plant description
Pasture ryegrass, or, as it is called by the people, perennial ryegrass is one of the best and most unique pasture grasses of spring type. Very often English ryegrass is mixed with annual leguminous crops, and until flowering, it is eagerly eaten by various agricultural animals.
Perennial ryegrass differs from its other relatives in its high nutritional value: 100 kilograms of grass correspond to approximately 23 feed units, while hay - to 60 units of feed.
Perennial ryegrass is contained in the herbage on different hayfields from 4 to 6 years old, and on pastures it can live up to 12 years. Until the fourth year from sowing, it reaches its apogee in development. It tolerates frequent mowing and trampling, and also recovers very quickly after any kind of mechanical damage.
Preference gives rich, well-drained and loamy soils. In turn, it grows poorly on soils that have high acidity.
Pasture ryegrass is a unique green plant that is intended for feeding many domesticated animals.
Also, perennial ryegrass forms short and numerous shoots with shiny and tender, green leaves, forming an excellent carpet of high quality. He has a well-developed root system and therefore this plant is one of the fastest-growing grass for the lawn.
This herb is a mesophyte. Thus, it does not withstand excessive moisture, but it is not a drought-resistant plant.
English ryegrass is also used to consolidate various kinds of eroded soils.
One of the main positive features of pasture ryegrass is its highest yield. It is perennial ryegrass that brings a huge amount of grass that is used to feed animals. The quality of ryegrass to long-term living is very convenient, since on average, life expectancy is 5-6 years.
The uniqueness of the yield of ryegrass perennial directly depends on the life span of a single plant. We already know that this subspecies of this type of ryegrass is also an excellent fertilizer and soil treatment, on which, in fact, the plant sprouts. This is the prerequisite to the fact that the harvest depends not so much on the conditions, but on the species itself, which contributes to fertilizing and improving the soil in the area of productivity.
If we talk in digital equivalent, then pasture ryegrass gives about 400 centners of green mass per hectare. In addition, it gives about 90-100 centners of hay per hectare, which is also a high indicator of plant yield. And the quintessence of the whole process of development and the apogee of the growth of productivity with each year of ryegrass is the total sum of the seeds. Thus, in the first year after sowing, about four quintals per hectare occur, and after the second and third years - about six quintals per hectare of soil.
Advantages:
In addition to high yields, pasture ryegrass has many other positive aspects:
- - high nutritional value and very high growth rate after mowing;
- - It is very well combined with herbs of another type (especially with clover);
- - is the fertilizer of the soil and its medicine, as it prevents erosion;
- - fast terms of total maturation, in the second year after the first sowing, rye grass reaches its apogee in development.
There is no obvious and significant deficiencies in pasture grazing. To small unpleasant aspects of the development of the plant can be attributed only to its non-drought resistance. Also, the plant does not withstand excessive moisture during its ripening period and may in the near future slow its development.
Sowing
Depending on the type of seeding, there are certain fluctuations in seeding rates. Thus, the seeding rate in clean crops per 1 hectare will be 12-14 kg. The second type of sowing will be sowing ryegrass perennial along with other herbs. In this case, the seeding rate per 1 hectare will vary in size from 8 to 10 kg.
Based on the above seeding rates, with a normal average climate in which there is no excess of moisture and various droughts, a positive result can be expected.
It is natural that the person is not under the temperature at which the pasture ryegrass will grow. And yet, a person can in a certain way affect the conditions of plant development. The optimum temperature for seed germination is from +2 degrees C to -4 degrees. The effect on temperature is due to the ability of a person to regularly water the plant.
The embedment depth of pasture ryegrass seeds is rather small and equals 2-3 cm. It is precisely because of the nature of the ryegrass itself, which is a mesophytic plant, that large amounts of moisture cannot be allowed, as well as to prevent the soil on which the grass grows.
Features of growing
Pasture ryegrass, although not too high, requires certain conditions for life and development. A lot depends on the method of sowing, because when sowing ryegrass with other grassy green plants, it is necessary to adhere to uniformity, but at the same time a separate partial approach to the cultivation, growth and development of plants that are planted on the same soil.
After winter, it is just the right time to sow ryegrass for many years, as the soil is sufficiently wetted, there is no drought and the soil has “refreshed” with the retreat of snow and frost.
Deviations from the following wishes can lead to a partial loss of the crop, and to its complete incapacity in comparison with the destination. These conditions are:
- - Seeding should occur in early spring; the soil should not be dry and measured wet;
- - English ryegrass can not cope with both frost and heat;
- - the soil must be processed immediately after the winter and the snow melt; moisture should be kept at a certain average amount and not allowed to water to “flood” the seeds of perennial ryegrass;
- - for plowing it is necessary to make potash and phosphate fertilizers, and in early spring to introduce nitrogen fertilizers for the first sowing;
- - mowing should be carried out at the very beginning of flowering, due to the fact that ryegrass grows coarse very quickly, as a result of which animals are poorly eaten.
