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Preliminary Trials on the Effect of Management on the Establishment of Perennial Grasses and Legumes at Davis, California 1
Author(s) -
Love R. Merton
Publication year - 1944
Publication title -
agronomy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.752
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1435-0645
pISSN - 0002-1962
DOI - 10.2134/agronj1944.00021962003600080007x
Subject(s) - perennial plant , citation , agronomy , library science , computer science , biology
A grasses and herbs constitute a preponderance of the vegetative cover on the foothill ranges of California, although Piemeisel and Lawson (2) ~ concluded from their studies of the vegetation of the San Joaquin Valley that, "the type was originally a cover of perennial bunch grasses." These have now almost entirely disappeared. Weaver and Clements (S) considered Stif)a t)ulchra Hitchc. to be the former dominant and this has since been shown (3) to be comprised of two distinct species, namely, S. i~ulchra Hitchc. and S. cernua Stebbins and Love. The chief drawbacks to the annual vegetation in California are (a) the annuals pass through their life cycle very rapidly and set seed and die shortly after the rainy season ends in the spring; (b) the wide fluctuations from year to year in the botanical composition of the annual cover (4) result in range deterioration since the same numbers of livestock tend to be carried in good years and bad; and (c) annuals are not as effective as perennials in preventing run-off and erosion, as has been pointed out by Chapline and Cooperrider (~) and others. One of the major obstacles to be overcome in improving the range is the re-establishment of perennial grasses. The slower rate of growth ̄ of their seedlings is a marked handicap to their survival in a dense stand of resident annuals. In order to determine the effects of different management practices on freshly seeded perennials the experiment described below was set up. The 27-acre field used for the experiment had been dry-farmed for years prior to ~933 after which it was pastured until ~935From ~935 to ~94~ it was used for increasing cereal varieties, a year of cropping alternating with one of fallow. In ~942 the cereals increased were varieties of wheat, oats, and barley. The soil is a Yolo clay loam and has a high water-holding capacity. The season i942-43 was normal with respect to the amount and distribution of rainfall, but there were more killing frosts in January than usual (Table ~).