Seasonal distribution of herbage mass and nutritive value of Prairiegrass (Bromus catharticus Vahl)

Abstract

A reliable supply of herbage is a crucial feature of foragebased livestock systems. Forage resources with winteractive growth habits can help extend the growing season in early spring and late autumn in regions with mildwinter conditions while drought-and heat-tolerant plants help meet herbage needs during summer in humid temperate regions. The prairiegrass (Bromus catharticus, Vahl) cultivars, Grassland Dixon and Grasslands Lakota, provide resistance to foliar disease and cold in addition to sustained productivity when soil moisture is low, and could be useful over a wide range of growing conditions. The cultivars were sown in spring or summer to determine seasonal distribution of productivity and nutritive value of herbage grown in a cool-temperate region. Stands established rapidly regardless of sowing time or cultivar and were virtually pure prairiegrass once plants were well-established. Stand composition of broadcast sowings tended to be stable in subsequent growing seasons, whereas the amount of prairiegrass varied in no-till stands. In the growing seasons after establishment, cumulative dry matter (DM) yield of Lakota was similar regardless of when it was sown, whereas DM yield of Dixon differed with sowing time and was less in spring-than summer-planted stands. Rapid stand establishment, significant lateseason yield, consistent concentrations of crude protein, non-structural carbohydrate and total digestible nutrients in herbage, and dominance of sward composition, suggest that prairiegrass cultivars, Dixon and Lakota, are excellent resources for forage-based livestock production systems in humid temperate conditions.

The Use of Thermal Time to Describe and Predict the Growth and Nutritive Value of Lolium perenne L. and Bromus valdivianus Phil

“…Environmental conditions not only affect LBL and AHM, but also leaf appearance rate and grass phenology [38,39]. Therefore, it plays an important role in the establishment of grazing frequency, as nutrient concentration varies as a function of TT, season, and other factors [40,41].…”

Stockpiled Prairiegrass Provides High‐Quality Fall Grazing for Lambs

“…Plant breeders developed varieties of prairiegrass with better mildew (‘Dixon’) (16) and cold (‘Lakota’) (15) tolerance for growing conditions in the USA. In Appalachia, these new varieties produced total annual forage mass of 5300 to 7050 kg/ha (1,2).…”

“…There is often a need for relatively short-term pasture that will produce gain to fill the gap between decline of summer pastures and the holiday markets. The fall productivity of prairiegrass in Appalachia (1,2) suggests it could meet this need, but there are no published reports of sheep performance while grazing prairiegrass at any time of year in the USA. Fall harvest management factors such as defoliation intensity and timing affect prairiegrass productivity in subsequent years (5,6,7), but these have not been studied in the cultivars that were developed for the USA.…”

The genetic diversity of wild rescuegrass is associated with precipitation levels

“…The genus Bromus belongs to the family Poaceae, contains over 160 annual and perennial species of grasses, varying in ploidy level from diploid (2n = 14) to dodecaploid (2n = 70) (Fortune et al 2008). One of the most relevant species of Bromus in agriculture is Bromus catharticus Vahl, also known as rescuegrass (Belesky et al 2007). B. catharticus is a winter annual grass, widely grown throughout the humid temperate regions.…”