Hedgehog fodder plant is a top loose perennial grass with rough leaf blades of medium width, serrated along the veins and edges. The inflorescence looks like a double-sided lobed panicle, and 3-6-flowered spikelets with scales ending in awn-like points are crowded at the tips of the branches.
Hedgehog team - perennial herbaceous plant
Hedgehog team is a herbaceous plant. Herbaceous plants are higher plants that have stems and leaves that die off at the end of the growing season. Herbs are annual, biennial and perennial. This life form lacks perennial lignified ground parts that can survive adverse seasons.
In perennial herbaceous plants, underground shoots exist for several years, and above-ground shoots change every year. Annual herbs completely die off at the end of the growing season or at the end of flowering and fruiting, but the next year they grow again from seeds. In one season, annuals manage to pass theira complete life cycle during which they grow from seeds, bloom, bear fruit and then die off.
Hedgehog is a perennial plant. In perennials, the stems also die off at the end of the growing season, but the underground part of the plant survives and exists for several seasons. The development of a new stem comes from the remaining living tissues that are underground (roots, underground shoots) and on the ground (caudex - a thickened section of the stem located at ground level).
Features of growth
Hedgehog team (photo below) tolerates snowy winters well, but in the absence of snow cover, it thins out. The plant can also be severely damaged by late spring frosts.
The low winter hardiness of hedgehogs is explained by the fact that the tillering node lies relatively shallow from the soil surface. Like many other perennial grasses, this grass reacts rather poorly to flooding and excessive soil moisture and does not withstand more than two weeks of being in hollow waters, and it also does not tolerate high groundwater. The hedgehog is considered a drought-resistant crop, but the paradox is that in arid conditions, its yield drops sharply.
Reproduction
With the winter type of development in the year of sowing, hedgehog plants form many vegetative shoots by autumn. The main number of generative stems is completely formed in the second year from shoots that appeared in the summer-autumn period aftervernalization. The plant blooms in the early morning hours, but there are some varieties that bloom in the afternoon and evening. The hedgehog team begins to bloom from the middle or upper part of the panicle, then the flowers spread throughout the inflorescence. The duration of flowering is on average 8 days. The plant blooms in June, and seed ripening occurs in mid-July. The seeds are triangular, elongated-pointed and gray in color.
Growing
Hedgehog team is used in the creation of pastures and hayfields, as well as in fodder crop rotations on upland meadows, mineral soils, drained swamps, in forest-steppe and steppe zones. This plant is an obligatory component of meadow grass stands in almost all regions. The only exceptions are the Southern Crimea, Buryatia, the Far East, Yakutia and the Arctic. The hedgehog is successfully grown in the irrigated territories of Transcaucasia and Central Asia together with sainfoin and alfalfa. It grows well on clay and loamy soils, enriched with the necessary amount of humus and provided with moisture, as well as on cultivated peat bogs. It does not tolerate very wet peatlands and dry sandy soils. The plant develops best in soils with a slightly acidic reaction.
Yields
Under favorable conditions, this cereal has a good yield and excellent fodder qualities. If mowing is carried out in the early phases (before earing), it produces a highly nutritious fodder for livestock. With later mowing, the nutritional value of the hedgehogdecreases sharply, because the protein content decreases, and the fiber content increases. The maximum amount of crude protein is present in the plant at the tillering stage (23%). When heading begins, protein levels drop to 10.4% and fiber levels rise to 30.9%. The hedgehog is able to form more than 2-3 cuttings and provides green fodder earlier than winter rye. When used on pastures, the plant grows normally with nitrogen supplements and satisfactorily tolerates trampling by livestock. In grass mixtures, the hedgehog lasts 8-10 years, and if it is sown in its pure form, then good harvests of seeds or hay can be expected as early as next year. The plant reaches full development in the third year.
