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Unsung Grass
| Article
# : |
19345 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1991 |
985 Words |
| Author
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Clyde C. Berg
Clyde C. Berg is a research agronomist at the Department of
Agriculture's Regional Pasture Research Laboratory, University
Park, Pennsylvania, where he has been conducting grass-
breeding research for 25 years. |
It is, perhaps, a common plant, orchard grass, shy by the wayside, errant on a fairway, bent in the pasture under an unmindful hoof, mingled among neighbors in a hayfield. Growing as a weed in some locations, it responds to the nurturing of the husbandman in fields and pastures.
As poet Walt Whitman wrote: "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars." Thus, orchard grass, or Dactylis glomerate, can lay claim, perhaps, to a speck of this galaxy.
Folded in the bud, its leaves mature into blades that may reach a meter in length yet be only as wide as a child's finger. When not flowering it is ankle- to knee-high to a man, but once spring sends the signal, orchard grass answers with stems up to one and a half meters long. They are topped with clusters of tightly packed flowers--an unmistakable sign that this is truly orchard grass.
These clusters of flowers gathered on the stem are the inspiration for its name, glomerata (from the Latin, meaning "gathered in bunches"). In Europe, the common name is cocksfoot, inspired by the pyramidal shape its clusters of flowers assume, but in the United States its common name derives from the fact that it frequents the cool shade of orchards. Not easily identified when it is harvested or grazed, its unique flower and folded leaves make it easy to recognize when growing wild or uncut.
Yet it is as a forage crop that orchard grass comes into its own, either seeded alone or mixed with other grasses or legumes, such as alfalfa and clovers. The young, tender shoots, whether grazed or harvested as hay or made into silage, nourish livestock.
It is often seeded in pastures and hayfields along with alfalfa or clover to improve the quality of the forage and to supply nitrogen for the grass. A grower must be mindful, however, to harvest it well before it becomes mature and sheds its pollen, to guard the quality and palatability of the plant. Unless orchard grass is grazed or cut regularly, it has a tendency to become coarse and tufted, and livestock then will pass it by.
The extensive fibrous root system enables orchard grass to extract nutrients and water from the soil. These roots also hold soil in place, greatly reducing soil erosion.
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