Hedgehog national team - a precious forage crop

The fodder plant of the hedgehog is a perennial loose-billed perennial grass with rough leaf plates of medium width, jagged over veins and edges. Inflorescence appears as a bilateral lobate panicle, and 3-6-flowered spikelet with scales ending with ovate tapering, are bored at the tips of twigs.

Hedgehog team - perennial herbaceous plant

The hedgehog team is a herbaceous plant. Herbaceous plants are higher plants that have stems and leaves that die at the end of the growing season. Herbs are annual, biennial and perennial. This life form lacks perennial lignified land parts that can survive unfavorable seasons.

In perennial herbaceous plants, underground shoots have existed for several years, and above-ground shoots change every year. Annual grasses completely die at the end of the growing season or after flowering and fruiting, but the next year they again grow from seeds. For one season, annuals manage to go through their full life cycle, during which they grow out of seeds, blossom, bear fruit and then die off.

A hedgehog is a perennial plant. For perennials stems also die at the end of the growing season, but the underground part of the plant survives and there are several seasons. The development of a new stem results from the remaining living tissues that are under the ground (roots, underground shoots) and on the ground (caudex - a thickened section of the stem located at the ground level).

Features of growth

The hedgehog team (the photo is presented below) well tolerates snowy winters, but in the absence of snow cover it is thinned. The plant can also be badly damaged by late spring frosts.

The low winter hardiness of the hedgehog is due to the fact that the tillering node in it lies relatively shallow from the surface of the soil. Like many other perennial herbs, this cereal reacts poorly to flooding and excessive moistening of the soil and can not stand more than two weeks in the hollow waters, and also suffers heavily from the high location of the groundwater. The hedgehog team is considered a drought-resistant crop, but the paradox is that in arid conditions its yield is sharply reduced.

Reproduction

With the winter type of development in the year of sowing, a lot of vegetative shoots are formed in the hedgehog plants by the autumn. The main number of generative stems is fully formed in the second year from shoots that appeared in the summer-autumn period after vernalization. The plant blooms in the early morning hours, but there are some varieties that blossom after dinner and in the evening. The hedgehog starts to bloom from the middle or upper part of the panicle, then the flowers spread all over the inflorescence. The duration of flowering averages 8 days. The plant blooms in June, and the ripening of the seeds occurs in the middle of July. Seeds are characterized by a triangular, elongated-pointed form and gray color.

Cultivation

The hedgehog team is used in the creation of pastures and hayfields, as well as in fodder crop rotations on dry meadows, mineral soils, drained marshes, in forest-steppe and steppe zones. This plant is an obligatory component of meadow grass stands of almost all regions. Exceptions are only the Southern Crimea, Buryatia, the Far East, Yakutia and the Arctic. Hedgehogs are successfully grown on irrigated territories of Transcaucasia and Central Asia together with sainfoin and alfalfa. It grows well on clayey and loamy soils enriched with the necessary amount of humus and provided with moisture, as well as on cultivated peat bogs. Very wet peat bogs and dry sandy soils suffer poorly. The plant is best developed in soils with a slightly acidic reaction.

Productivity

Under favorable conditions this herb is characterized by good yield and has excellent forage qualities. If mowing is carried out in the early phases (prior to extrusion), high-nutritional feeds for livestock are obtained from it. With later mowing the nutritional value of the hedgehog decreases sharply, since the protein content decreases, and the fiber content increases. The maximum amount of crude protein is present in the plant at the tillering phase (23%). When the ear begins, the protein level drops to 10.4%, and the fiber increases to 30.9%. The hedgehog is able to form more than 2-3 cuts and provides a green feed earlier than winter rye. When used in pastures, the plant normally grows with nitrogen fertilizing and satisfactorily suffers trampling by cattle.
In hedgehogs hedgehog keeps 8-10 years, and if it is sown in its pure form, then good harvests of seeds or hay can be expected as early as next year. The plant reaches its full development in the third year.