HOW GRASSES DIFFER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 447, 13 March 1912, Page 3

HOW GRASSES DIFFER.

Grasses differ very much, not only in their nutritive values, but in the percentages of water or moisture which they contain. Meadow Foxtail, for instance one of the earliest and beat of our pasture plants—contains about 55 per cent, of water, meadow fescue over 70 per out., and the various clovers over SO per cent. The lower the percentages of water the more nutritious it might naturally be expected that a grass should be, but this does not necessarily follow, because, though the percentage of moisture may be comparatively low, the percentage of woody fibre may be correspondingly high, and the value of the grass will suffer accordingly. This is well known in the case of such a grass as timothy, in which the percentage of water falls to about 40, but in which the proportion of woody fibre amounts to almost onethird, or over 30 per cent, of the total weight of the green grass. By way of contrast with timothy in this respect, we have perennial ryegrass, with about 17 per cent, of woody fibre, foxtail with about 10 per cent., and crested dogstail with only about 12 per cent, of woody fibre. Other grasses which, like Timothy, are very low in moisture content, but which contain a high percentage of woody fibre, are rough stalked meadow grass, with 42 per cent., of water, and over 20 per cent, of fibre: evergreen meadow grass, with 85 per cent, of water, and 27 per cent, of woody fibre; and hard fescue, with 01 per cent, of water and 2o per cent, of woody fibre. Our principal pasture plants the lowest in woody fibre are crested dogstail, with about 12 per cent., Italian ryegrass with about 11 per cent., and meadow fecsue with about 12jV per cent. The relatively good position occupied by crested dogstail in this connection is particularly noticeable because of the fact that this grass is notorious for its liability to run into hard, wiry stems, which become so woody and indigestible that stock of all kinds refuse to eat them. In order to obtain the advantage of its lowness in woody fibre this grass must be cut immediately after flowering, as, iC allowed to grow until its seed has ripened its proportion of indigestible fire will have very considerably This is the case, of course, with most grasses, but it is particularly noticeable in the case of crested dogstail.