Livestock farming is one of the most important branches of agriculture. The main task remains to provide a gigantic (planetary) livestock of domestic animals with feed. Not the least role in solving this difficult problem is played by forage cereals. The diversity, nutrition, unpretentiousness of plants help to cope with this issue.
Cereals
The cereal family has nearly seven hundred and sixty genera and more than eleven and a half thousand species. They have different uses:
- food (wheat, rye and others);
- fodder (timothy, hedgehog team and others)
- used as building material (bamboo);
- for paper production (papyrus);
- as a method of combating soil erosion (a powerful root system allows you to fix sand dunes);
- lawn (where resistance to trampling is required);
- decorative (mainly for decorating large lawns or park areas).
Cereals can also act as weeds. They clog crops, gardens, drown out other cultivated plants. A striking representative is wheatgrass. Although this grass is often mowed for hay and is widely used in horse breeding.
Actually, a cereal feed plant is grasses from the family of cereals that are used as feed for farm animals. It can be hay, green top dressing, pasture, silage or grain.
They are distributed throughout the globe, grow on absolutely all continents, including in Antarctica. This is an aborigine called Antarctic pike, or Antarctic meadow, and introduced - annual bluegrass. In Russia, about 30% of the cultivated area is occupied under cereal crops. Natural and cultural pastures are widely used.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of cereal plants. They are a source of valuable, nutritious feed for all types of farm animals. It is impossible to create a reliable forage base in the absence or lack of natural hayfields and pastures, without the use of seeded forage grasses. In agronomy they use their ability to change the chemical composition of the soil, enriching it and increasing the yield of subsequent crops.
Types of cereals
The family of fodder cereals is represented by a large number of plants. They have several classifications:
- annuals;
- perennial;
- rhizome;
- loose bush;
- dense bush;
- riding;
- semi-upper;
- grassroots;
- cultural;
- wild.
Description of cereals:
- Stem. They call it a straw, usually hollow, separated by knots. Basically, the fabric is soft, non-lignified, but there are also tree-like forms - bamboo. It grows quickly, the height can reach 30 meters.
- Shoots. They can be vegetative and generative. Branching in the inflorescence zone or in the tillering area.
- Leaves. Narrow, as a rule, without a petiole sessile, vagina open. Depart from each node one at a time, one at a time. They are arranged in two opposite rows on the stem.
- The roots The system is fibrous, effectively absorbs and accumulates water and nutrients.
- Inflorescences. There are several types: panicles, ears, ears, brushes, sultans (spikelets). The common inflorescence consists of several flowers.
- Flowers. As a rule, bisexual (contain a pistil and stamens), subtle, small, there is no clearly defined perianth. Self-or wind-pollinated.
- Fetus. It is called a kernel (colloquially - grain), the pericarp is practically not separated from the seed, the ovary is single-nest (in the only cavity there is one ovule).
Reproduction occurs vegetatively, by seed or with the help of rhizomes.
Perennial
Perennial fodder cereal grows on natural pastures and hayfields, and is used in grass mixtures. Representatives: hedgehog, ryegrass, timothy, bonfire, boneless, foxtail and others. It can successfully grow and produce crops for several seasons. By the number of years it happens:
- small longevity - 2-3 years;
- medium longevity - 4-5 years;
- long-term - above 5 years.
All perennial fodder cereals cross-pollinated. Pollination is wind, occurs in the morning. For cereal grass, seed fall off is typical.
Annuals
Annual fodder cereals live for one year. Representatives of this group of plants include mogar, corn, Sudanese grass, annual ryegrass, African millet, sorghum, oats and others.
They are often sown as part of grass mixtures, for example, sorghum for harvesting on silage. Sudanese grass provides an excellent crop of high protein hay. Mogar has proven itself in the structure of the green conveyor. They begin to clean it during the period of throwing panicles, it is eaten by all types of agricultural. animals and bird.
Wild growing
Feed cereals can also be wild. These plants are widespread in the steppe and forest-steppe zones. They are one of the main types of food not only for farm animals, but also for wild ungulates. The fibrous root system reliably holds the soil, while maintaining the vast expanses of the steppes in their original form.