Effects of Clipping Height on Some Basic Characteristics of Timothy Grass Phleum pratense L.

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to study the reaction of timothy grass to different clipping heights. In the greenhouse of the Agronomy Department of Agricultural Faculty of Ankara University, 20 pots planted with young timothy grass were clipped in 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 cm heights for 86 whenever they reached 15 cm for 86 days in the spring of 1997. No fertiliser was applied but they watered as needed. The forage obtained from every cut was weighted and recorded. The experiment was terminated when the control plants had spikes. After the soil washed away, roots were dried at 70 °C for 24 h and weighted. Results obtained indicate that plants cut in 2.5 cm gaye the lowest usable forage, total forage, tiller number, dry root weight. The number of cuttings depended on the clipping height and ranged from 7 to 12. The higher the clipping height, the higher the number of cuttings. Plants cut to 2.5 cm gaye the lowest tiller number. The highest forage yields, tiller numbers and root weights were obtained from the plants cut to 7.5 and 10 cm heights, which is representative of moderate grazing. The strongest effect of deep cutting grazing was on the root development. Plants cut to a height of 2.5 cm produced 6 times less root weight than the control plants. There were no significant differences among the plants cut down to 7.5 and 10 cm. Forage yields, number of cuttings, root weights, tiller numbers were increased with the clipping heights. Clipping to low heights reduced the development of timothy grass; this suggests heavy grazing would also arrest development of timothy grass

Keywords

• phleum pratense
• biçme yüksekliğ i
• yeşil yem
• kök
• kardeşlenme
• phleum pratense
• clipping height
• forage
• root
• tillering