ANIM2501 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Stolon, Poaceae, Soil Fertility
Improved Pasture Species: Grasses
Australia’s Agricultural Holdings
- Majority native pasture
Why sow improved pasture species?
- Intensify animal production
- Improve system profitability
- Reduce or remove the need for supplementation
- Higher productivity gives flexibility to meet variety of market requirements
- More resilient under grazing, reduced degradation.
- Rotate with crops and improve soil fertility.
Variation in Pasture Species
- Botanical group: May be grass or legumes.
- Physical structure: (Grasses: tall, prostrate, ascendant, tufted, stoloniferous; Legumes: trees,
shrubs, prostrate, stoloniferous, or creeping vines)
- Rooting structure: (grasses: dense fibrous roots, rhizomes; legumes: deeper tap roots, can
excess larger area ad more nutrients and moisture, rhizomes)
- Adaptation to climate (wet or dry, tropical, subtropical or temperate temperatures, frost)
- Adaptation to soil: (texture, chemical fertility, acidity, waterlogging, saltiness)
Anatomy of a Grass:
- Leaf: More leaf the better because leaf contains the highest amount of nutrients. Best grass
is youngest, freshly growing, cause all leaf no stems.
- Stem: Not so nutritious, edible but less value than leaf.
- Floret: The flower
- Spikelet: Group of flowers
- Roots: Fibrous roots, stolons (more resilient under heavy grazing?), rhizomes.
- Stolons grow above ground but rhizomes grow below ground (the runners) so even more
resilient to grazing
- Http://tropicalforages.info and
http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/pastures/html/index.htm3B. (Hash)
Subtropical/Semi-Arid grasses:
1. Buffel grass
Strengths
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Reduce or remove the need for supplementation. Higher productivity gives flexibility to meet variety of market requirements. Rotate with crops and improve soil fertility. Botanical group: may be grass or legumes. Physical structure: (grasses: tall, prostrate, ascendant, tufted, stoloniferous; legumes: trees, shrubs, prostrate, stoloniferous, or creeping vines) Rooting structure: (grasses: dense fibrous roots, rhizomes; legumes: deeper tap roots, can excess larger area ad more nutrients and moisture, rhizomes) Adaptation to climate (wet or dry, tropical, subtropical or temperate temperatures, frost) Adaptation to soil: (texture, chemical fertility, acidity, waterlogging, saltiness) Leaf: more leaf the better because leaf contains the highest amount of nutrients. Best grass is youngest, freshly growing, cause all leaf no stems. Stem: not so nutritious, edible but less value than leaf. Stolons grow above ground but rhizomes grow below ground (the runners) so even more resilient to grazing. Adapted to a range of soil textures. Moderate palatability (cid:858)fluffy(cid:859) seed is diffi(cid:272)ult to sow (cid:894)always (cid:271)low(cid:374) arou(cid:374)d(cid:895)
