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Echinochloa polystachya (Kunth) Hitchc. |
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Graminae Panicum spectabile Nees Echinochloa spectabilis (Nees) Link. German or Alemán grass (Panama), pasto alemain (Venezuela), pardegrao, prasi-grasi (Suriname). Perennial, usually in colonies, culms coarse, 1 to 2 m tall, from a long creeping root base, glabrous; nodes densely hispid with appressed yellowish hairs; ligule a dense line of stiff, yellowish hairs; blades up to 2-5 cm wide, panicle dense, 10-30 cm long, racemes ascending; rachis scabrous spikelets closely set, nearly sessile, about 5 mm long; sterile floret staminate, the awn 2-10 mm long; fruit rather soft, 4 mm long extending to a point 0.5 mm long (Hitchcock, 1930). Mexico and West Indies to Argentina. Summer. It prefers low elevations. It is a high-rainfall grass. It does not tolerate drought. It is adapted to wet to very wet soils (Rattray, 1973). Its adaptability to wet conditions and good productivity. Its intolerance of frosts. It is not tolerant of frost. Between 30°N and S. It is very palatable. Chemical analysis and digestibility Göhl (1975) records one analysis from Cuba. Fresh vegetative material yielded 29.7 percent dry matter, 13.1 percent crude protein, 26.2 percent ash, 3.1 percent ether extract and 46 percent nitrogen-free extract (Calving, 1952). Digestibility figures are recorded by Jiménez and Parra (1973) as obtained from the giant rodent, the capybara, in Venezuela. The intake (g DM/kg body weight x 0.75) was 83. The total digestibility of the dry matter was 58.8 percent, containing 11.7 percent crude protein and 36.2 percent crude fibre, with digestibility ratios of 63 and 52.1 percent, respectively. In Suriname, Dirven (1936b) found an average of 9.6 percent crude protein in the dry matter, with a range up to 18.9 percent.# Swamps and ditches near the coast. It will grow well in standing water, and generally requires moist conditions (Semple, 1970). A useful summer pasture under high-rainfall conditions with some seasonal waterlogging, widely used in South American tropics and subtropics. In Vera Cruz, Mexico, with a rainfall of 1 060 mm from May to October and an altitude of 10-16 m, zebu steers grazed on a put-and-take system gained 280 kg/ha on E. polystachya compared with 406 kg/ha on Digitaria decumbens, 223 kg/ha on Brachiaria mutica, 190 kg/ha on Hyparrhenia rufa and 157 kg/ha on Panicum maximum (Arroyo & Teunissen, 1964). Grass genera of the world: Information about botany, ecology etc. of the Eriochloa genus; links to photographs and drawings Jiménez & Parra, 1975. |