• • • Phytocenotic paradigm in breeding of legume grasses in the North Caucasus
Nowadays productivity of highlands is not stable and relatively low, being influenced by weather, human, animals, technology etc. Biomass and number of most valuable forage and medicinal grasses reduce while unpalatable species and poisonous plants prevail. Moreover, sod layer gets destroyed, slope lands degrade and erosion increases. Such condition of natural grasslands requires a number of measures, improving land productivity and maintaining biodiversity of valuable forage, food and medicinal plants. Overgrassing by highly adaptive species is one of those measures. The investigation took place in 2014–2017 in the North Caucasus. To form varieties to be cultivated in grasslands and pastures wild species were analyzed in natural phytocenoses and the promising ones, having economically important traits, were selected. Selection happened at 600–2000 m above sea level, followed by species analyses in breeding nurseries and formation of hybrid populations. Domestic and foreign varieties as well as wild types were used for intercross. Genotypes were evaluated in mixtures with herbs and gramineous. Promising forms, grown with timothy and fodder burnet, were tested for adaptability and high tolerance. As a result, variety “Farn” was obtained to be grown in grasslands, tested at 1600 m above sea level.
Source: https://kormoproizvodstvo.ru/en/8-2018-2/, p. 24
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