Tall oatgrass

Economic importance

Hay of tall oatgrass has good feeding qualities and a somewhat bitter taste, but it has not become widespread in agricultural production. It is consumed satisfactorily by animals in pure form, and well in mixtures with other grasses.

Tall oatgrass is characterized by rapid growth, early maturity, high productivity, and early flowering; hay becomes coarse if harvesting is delayed. It regrows well after mowing; under favorable conditions it can produce 2-3 hay cuts. It is usually not used for livestock grazing.

It is a plant of temperate climate; in the forest-steppe zone it surpasses meadow timothy and meadow fescue in yield.

It can be cultivated in field and fodder crop rotations as part of hay and hay-pasture grass mixtures. In mixtures with legumes, the best components are variegated alfalfa, sand and vetchleaf sainfoin.

When used early, it produces forage mass containing 11-12% protein; compared with other grasses, its carotene content is 2 times lower.

100 kg of hay contains 59 feed units and 3.5 kg of digestible protein.

It is considered a good component of grass mixtures for grassing over gullies and hollows. A grass mixture including alfalfa, sainfoin, awnless brome and tall oatgrass is used to improve sloping lands.

History of cultivation

Tall oatgrass began to be cultivated in Russia from the end of the 19th century.

Cultivation areas

It is cultivated in regions of the forest-steppe zone and in the North Caucasus.

Yield

It gives high yields in the second year of life: hay 6-8 t/ha, seeds 200-800 kg/ha.

Botanical description

Tall oatgrass (Arrhenatherum elatius J. et C. Presl) — a perennial (short-lived) cereal plant of the tall loose-tufted type.

The root system is fibrous, well developed, and penetrates the soil to a depth of up to 280 cm.

The stems are geniculate-ascending, hollow, erect, smooth, 80-170 cm tall.

The leaves are narrow, up to 7 mm wide and up to 30 cm long.

The inflorescence is a loose, spreading, branched panicle, 16-22 cm long. The spikelets are two-flowered, 7-8 mm long.

The fruit is light green. The weight of 1000 seeds is 2.7-3.4 g.

Biological characteristics

In cold winters with little snow cover, tall oatgrass freezes out, leading to thinning of crops or complete loss from stands. It tolerates spring frosts poorly, especially late ones.

Drought resistance is low. It tolerates high temperatures poorly.

It is moderately demanding of moisture and prefers soils with medium moisture.

It does not tolerate close occurrence of groundwater or flooding. It prefers chernozems, loose and with a high content of soil organic matter. It grows well on loamy, sandy loam, podzolic and other soils with permeable subsoil. Swampy and compacted soils are unsuitable.

Vegetation

When sown without a cover crop, it can produce a hay crop in the first year of life. It persists in the stand for 4-5 years.

Under a cover crop, plants reach full development in the second year of life. After emergence it grows faster than other cereal grasses; with sufficient moisture it can produce a cut even under cover sowing, and without cover it can bloom by the end of summer.

In grass mixtures it begins to drop out in the 3rd-5th year of life.

Development type is spring.

Soil treatment

Soil treatment for tall oatgrass is similar to that for alfalfa.

Sowing

It is sown in early spring in mixture with other grasses under cover or without cover. In mixture with perennial legumes, it is usually sown under cover of spring grain crops with grain-grass seeders between the rows of the cover crop.

Seeding rate in pure sowing, for example for seed purposes, is 15-16 kg/ha with the row method, 8-9 kg/ha with the wide-row method, and 8-12 kg/ha as part of grass mixtures. Sowing depth is 2-3 cm.

Harvesting

Hay harvesting begins at the beginning of panicle emergence.

Seed harvesting begins in the wax ripeness phase by the separate method.

Varieties

Priekulsky 20.

Poltavsky 521.

Strelets. Bred by the Stavropol Research Institute of Agriculture in 2001.

List of sources

1. Vavilov P. P., Gritsenko V. V., Kuznetsov V. S. et al. (1986). Plant Growing. Edited by Vavilov P. P. 5th ed., revised and enlarged. Moscow: Agropromizdat.
2. Kolomeichenko V. V. (2007). Plant Growing/Textbook. Moscow: Agrobiznescentr.
3. Niklyaev V. S. (2000). Fundamentals of Agricultural Production Technology. Farming and Plant Growing. Moscow: “Bylina”.
4. S_13