Morphological Characteristics in Survivor Populations of Orchardgrass at Permanent Grasslands

Abstract

This experiment was carried out to clarify the difference of morphological characteristics between survivor populations of orchardgrass, variety Masshardy in permanent meadow and pasture. The grasslands were managed as follows ; the meadow was harvested two times at July and September, and the pasture was grazed fifteen times by cattle from May to October every year in a rotational grazing system. Survivor plants of orchardgrass were collected from both ten years old meadow and pasture, and were grown under spaced plant conditions. The investigations were made on some morphological characters at full heading time during the second year after transplanting. It was found that there were differences in some characters between two survivor populations, however these differences were considered very small. The most noticeable difference was detected on the growth habit, and the population obtained from meadow was more high and erect plant type than those of pasture. The variance of plant height and flag leaf height on tiller was less in the population of meadow, and the variance of tiller angle decreased significantly in the pasture population. The results of this experiment indicate that selection has occured within the variety over a long period due to different farm practices.