Canarygrass (Phalaris canariensis L.) crops are sown from June to mid-September in the southeastern area of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sowing dates in this range result in different growing temperatures and photoperiods that affect the duration of developmental stages, biomass production, and seed yield and its components. For Argentina, there are no reported studies that address these effects. This study on the effects of sowing date was conducted during four growing seasons (1996–1999) at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologí a Agropecuaria (INTA) Experimental Station at Balcarce, Argentina, using a population provided by Dr. Jaime Lloveras, University of Leyda, Spain. Different seeding dates were chosen from June to mid-September. The experiment was a randomized complete block design with four blocks. When the sowing date was delayed, total dry matter (DM) decreased. For early sowing dates seed yield was constant, but after 10 August it was reduced by 1.5% for each day of delay. Earlier sowing increased the duration of pre-anthesis development with greater uniformity in panicle size and the number of seeds. Seed yield was related lin early to the number of seeds and plant dry matter yield (DMY). The rate of progress from emergence to anthesis (1/days from emergence to anthesis) was proportional to the mean photoperiod. Under the environmental conditions in Balcarce, the accumulated required thermal units for anthesis was reduced when sowing was delayed from June to September. This reduction was related to the photoperiod and was estimated as –189.3 growing degree-days per hour of photoperiod increment. Key words: Canarygrass, seed yield, sowing date, yield components

IntroductionThe commercially viable cultivation of canary grass (Phalaris canariensis L.) in Argentina arose at the beginning of this century. Little attention has been paid to improving the species genetically, which has resulted in a lack of commercial varieties. Growers generally use seeds from their own production or that of other growers. Seeds are obtained from seed gathers, and in most cases these gathered seeds contain a mixture of different populations. In other countries a range of cultivars are present, even though there has been little genetic improvement. In this study, the introduced varieties of canary grass cv. Elias and cv. Keet, orginally from the United States, were compared with local populations of canary grass in Argentina.

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