Description
Pasture ryegrass, popularly referred to as chaff, is a perennial, semi-upper and loose bush pasture or ornamental cereal. Not only hay is prepared from it, but also silage with hay.
On pastures, this
forage grass is eaten by cattle only in a mixture with legumes or other herbs, because it has a slightly bitter taste. After sowing the seeds for the first year, it forms an intense and dense beautiful lawn. By the type of its development, it is mid-season. Perennial ryegrass grows quite quickly, starting to bear fruit from the second year. He has a powerful ramified root system that penetrates deep into the soil, holding it together. Upright fruiting stems are of medium thickness, in their lower part they are well leafy. Pasture ryegrass has many vegetatively shortened shoots. It has dark shiny leaves up to fifteen centimeters long. Seeds of this grass ripen in July, and pasture ryegrass blooms in early summer. This cereal is found everywhere in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, as well as in some regions of Ukraine.
Advantages
The main advantage of this cereal grass is its amazing ability to form a thick, very beautiful grass stand already a month after sowing seeds. The ryegrass is used as an ornamental plant, the reason for this is its bright juicy green color. It is added to all types of lawn grass mixtures - both for coatings with a sports purpose, and for decorative. It grows very quickly and evenly after mowing, while maintaining its decorative appearance until late autumn and leaving green under the snow. As a feed crop, this herb has a fairly high digestibility, it contains a lot of soluble sugars. Therefore, ryegrass grass is excellent in silage without the addition of preservatives. Together with clover, they form a very successful grass mixture, which fully satisfies the need of livestock for protein. Another advantage is the rapid tillering, which allows you to start early grazing on its grass.
Height
The pasture ryegrass tolerates a moderate shadow. It easily takes root on compacted soils with different composition. Pasture ryegrass grows well both on garden acid soils and on well-drained loams, preferring sunny places. This grass is also resistant to drought. In humid conditions, it is affected by rust. At very high temperatures, the leaves of ryegrass can wither and die out. In addition, pasture ryegrass is characterized by longevity, but low conservation. For two years, the chaff is used on seeds, usually cultivating it for up to four years. He has the best indicators for productivity in the second year of his life, in the future, productivity decreases markedly.
Flowering and propagation
Pasture ryegrass begins to bloom only in the second year of life. Its flowering is observed in warm weather in late June - early June. Grass can be pollinated not only by the wind, but also by self-pollination. As a result, grayish seeds with a lanceolate shape, concave inward, ripen on it. Their size reaches six millimeters in length. Rye grass propagates by the autumn division of its bush and nodules.