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Title: RE-ESTABLISHMENT AND REGROWTH OF SELF-SEEDED ITALIAN RYEGRASS

Author
item Bartholomew, Paul
item Williams, Robert

Submitted to: Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/24/2004
Publication Date: 11/1/2004
Citation: Bartholomew, P.W., Williams, R.D. 2004. Re-establishment and regrowth of self-seeded Italian ryegrass [abstract]. Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America Meeting. Paper No. 5636.

Interpretive Summary: Abstract Only

Technical Abstract: Self-reseeding may offer a low-input method of regenerating Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.) for cool-season forage production in the Southern Great Plains, but management practices that enable this are not well defined. In its first production year, Italian ryegrass was subjected to initial-harvest treatments in mid-April, early-May or mid-May and to three levels of forage offtake, 100, 76 or 53% of standing crop, at each harvest. Following initial harvest, plots were allowed to regrow and set seed, prior to a second harvest in July. The crop re-established in early fall and forage production was measured under a uniform clipping regime during the following cool-season. Total forage yield of the re-established crop was greater on plots harvested in mid-April and early-May (2310 kg ha-1) than on plots harvested in mid-May (1810 kg ha-1) of the first production year. At the end of the second growing season the number of mature seed-bearing tillers produced (mean of 110 tillers m-2) did not differ significantly among first-year harvest and offtake treatments. Management during the first production year affected re-establishment and forage output of Italian ryegrass in the following cropping season, but did not appear to influence the potential for reseeding at the end of the second year.