Cereals: description

Animal husbandry is one of the main branches of agriculture. The main task remains to provide a giant (in the scale of the whole planet) livestock of livestock feed. Not the last role in solving this difficult problem is played by forage grasses. Variety, nutritiousness, unpretentiousness of plants help to successfully cope with this issue.

Cereals

The family of cereals has almost seven hundred and sixty genera and more than eleven and a half thousand species. They have different applications:

• Food (wheat, rye and others);
• Fodder (timothy, hedgehog and other)
• Use as a building material (bamboo);
• For the production of paper (papyrus);
• As a method of combating soil erosion (a powerful root system allows sand dunes to be anchored);
• Lawn (where you need resistance to trampling);
• Decorative (mainly for decorating large lawns or park areas).

Cereals can also act as weeds. They pollute crops, vegetable gardens, and other cultural plants. A bright representative is wheat grass. Although this herb is often cut to hay and is widely used in horse breeding.

Actually, the forage plant grass is grass from the family of cereals, which are used as feed for agricultural animals. It can be hay, green top dressing, pasture, silage or grain.

They are distributed around the globe, grow absolutely on all continents, including in Antarctica. This aborigine is called Antarctic pike, or Antarctic meadow, and brought in - bluegrass annual. In Russia, cereal crops employ about 30% of the acreage. Natural and cultural pastures are widely used.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of cereal plants. They are a source of valuable, nutritious feed for all types of farm animals. It is impossible to create a reliable fodder base in the absence or lack of natural hayfields and pastures, without the use of sowing forage grasses. Agronomy uses their ability to change the chemical composition of the soil, enriching it and increasing the yield of subsequent crops.

Types of cereals

A family of fodder cereals is represented by a large number of plants. They have several classifications:

• For life expectancy:

- Annual;

- perennial;

• By type of tillering:

- rhizome;

- loose-bore;

- dense-bodied;

• On the height of the grass stand:

- riding;

- semi-high;

- grassroots;

• By type of cultivation:

- cultural;

- wild growing.

Description of cereals:

• Stem. Call a straw, usually hollow, separated by nodes. In general, the fabric is soft, non-woody, but there are also tree-like forms - bamboo. It grows quickly, the height can reach 30 meters.
• Shoots. They can be vegetative and generative. Branching in the inflorescence zone or in the tillering area.
• Leaves. Narrow, usually without a petiole sessile, the vagina is not closed. Leave from each node one at a time, alternately. They are arranged in two opposite rows on the stem.
• Roots. The system is friable, effectively absorbs and stores water and nutrients.
• Inflorescences. There are several types: panicles, ears, cobs, brushes, sultans (spiky panicles). The general inflorescence consists of several flowers.
• Flowers. As a rule, bisexual (contain pestle and stamens), unobtrusive, small, clearly expressed perianth no. Self- or wind-pollinated.
• Fetus. Called grains (in common parlance - grain), the pericarp is practically not separated from the seed, the ovary is single-nest (in one cavity there is one ovule).

Reproduction occurs vegetatively, by seeds or by means of rhizomes.

Perennial

Perennial fodder grass grows on natural pastures and hayfields, it is used in grass mixtures. Representatives: hedgehog, ryegrass, timothy, bonfire, beardless, foxtail and others. It can successfully grow and yield for several seasons. By the number of years it happens:

• Small longevity - 2-3 years;
• Average longevity - 4-5 years;
• Long-term - over 5 years.

All perennial forage grasses are cross-polluted. Pollination occurs during the morning hours. For grass grasses, the seediness of seeds is typical.

Annual

Annual greens live for one year. Representatives of this group of plants include mogar, corn, Sudan grass, ryegrass annual, African millet, sorghum, oats and others.

They are often sown in the composition of grass mixtures, for example, sorghum for harvesting for silage. Sudanese grass gives an excellent harvest of hay with a high protein content. The mogar has proved itself in the structure of the green conveyor. It begins to be cleaned during the throwing away panicle, is eaten by all types of farming. Animals and birds.

Wildlife

Cereals can also be wild. These plants are widespread in the steppe and forest-steppe zones. They are one of the main types of feed not only for farm animals, but also for wild ungulates. The lobed root system reliably retains the soil, preserving the endless expanses of the steppes in its original form.