A Detailed Guide to Pennisetum Planting Techniques and Winter Management Methods
Pennisetum, also known as dog's tail and mouse wolf, is a fairly common weed and very similar to the familiar foxtail grass. Pennisetum is also an ornamental grass with a certain ornamental value, and it can also be used as feed for livestock, making it a grass with very high utility value!
Pennisetum Planting Techniques
Because the seeds are small and the young shoots have poor ability to push through the soil, the quality of land preparation has a great influence on emergence. Therefore, land preparation should be fine to favor emergence. It is best to sow when the temperature steadily reaches 15°C. Sowing in early to mid-May, or delaying the sowing period until the end of June, can also produce a relatively high grass yield. When sowing, suitable soil moisture must be maintained, and after sowing the soil should be covered to a depth of about 1.5 cm. Seedlings can emerge 5-6 days after sowing. For hay cutting, drilling is generally used, with a sowing rate of 0.7-1.0 kg per mu and a row spacing of 50 cm; seedlings can also be raised and transplanted, transplanted to the field when they have 5-6 leaves. The transplanting density is 4000-5000 plants per mu. Row spacing is 45 cm, and plant spacing is 20-25 cm. To prevent damage to seeds or seedlings by underground pests such as ants, seed dressing with pesticide or application of poisonous soil must be used. Organic pennisetum grows slowly at the seedling stage and is often easily invaded by weeds, so intertillage and weeding should be carried out 2 times in time to promote early tillering. Once tillering begins, it grows rapidly. At the seedling stage, full stands should be ensured, and if drought occurs, irrigation should be carried out in time.
How to Handle Pennisetum in Winter
In the north, winters are cold, and pennisetum enters withering in November and regrows in April of the following year. In the south, it stays green all year round, but undergoes periodic alternating renewal. This is roughly from July to October. February to March is the intermittent period. In South China it can overwinter naturally, while in Jiangsu and Zhejiang it needs to be moved into a greenhouse to protect the seedlings through winter.
Classification of Pennisetum Varieties
1. Bai Cao
Bai Cao is produced in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan (northwest), Yunnan (north), Tibet and other provinces and regions; it is also distributed in the Soviet Union, Japan and Central and Western Asia. It mostly grows on mountain slopes and relatively dry places at an altitude of 800-4600 m. It prefers dry places on mountain slopes or roadsides and is a common weed at field edges and nurseries.
2. Sichuan Pennisetum
Sichuan Pennisetum, of the grass family and the genus Pennisetum, is a perennial herb. The culms are hard in texture. The leaf blades are linear, in spike-like cylindrical form, with short stalks; the first glume is thin and very small, the second glume is longer than the first glume, and its margin is thin and flat, enclosing the palea of the same texture. It mostly grows on riverbanks and mountain slopes at an altitude of 2000-3000 m.
3. Long-spike Pennisetum
Long-spike Pennisetum is perennial. It has no rhizome, or has a very short rhizome, but it does not creep horizontally, and the fibrous roots are sturdy. The leaf blades are linear, the panicle usually droops, and the epidermal cell structure of the leaves differs between the upper and lower epidermis. It is produced in mainland China in Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan. It grows on open slopes and mountainous land at an altitude of 500-2000 m.
Main Values of Pennisetum
The leaves are soft and have good palatability, and both herbivorous livestock and fish like to eat them. Pennisetum has relatively high nutritional value. When the plants are 1.2 m high during the vegetative growth period, the dry matter of stems and leaves contains 10% crude protein, 3.5% crude fat, 32.9% crude fiber, 42.4% nitrogen-free extract and 10.2% crude ash. At the same time, it is also a high-quality green feed for herbivorous poultry and herbivorous fish. Its grass production peak coincides with the peak feeding demand of fish, and the crude protein digestibility of hybrid pennisetum by grass carp is 82.71%. For example, when used as green feed for raising cattle and sheep, it is cut 5-6 times per year; when used as feed for fish, rabbits, geese, pigs and other livestock and poultry, it is cut 8-10 times per year. In addition to green cutting, it can also be sun-dried into hay or prepared into silage. The grass supply period is from June to October, and it plays a certain role in alleviating the contradiction of high summer temperatures and lack of green feed in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Through the above content, I believe everyone has gained a certain understanding of pennisetum. Pennisetum is widely used and has ornamental, feed, medicinal and other values. Planting pennisetum is also very simple, because pennisetum has strong vitality and is easy to grow!