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Echinochloa pyramidalis (Lam.) Hitchc. and Chase |
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Graminae Antelope grass (southern Africa). A reedlike perennial up to 300 cm high, with solid stems, rarely to 450 cm, ligules of the lower leaves a fringe of hairs often absent on the upper. Inflorescence 15-30 cm long with racemes up to 8 cm long having purplish, acute, awnless spikelets 3-4 mm long (Napper, 1965). It forms a dense pure stand with a leaf table at 120-200 cm. Throughout tropical Africa and America and introduced to other countries. It forms a major part of the sudd of the upper Nile. Summer. Sea-level to 300-1 500 m. It generally grows in swamps, where rainfall accumulates. It is drought resistant. Usually associated with badly drained black clays ("black cotton" soils) of illuvial nature which become very sticky when wet but when dry turn very hard and deeply fissured or of a blocky structure. Normally these are deep, with lower horizons mottled with yellow or brown. It is propagated by cuttings. Vigour of growth and growth rhythm E. pyramidalis is characteristic of flood plain grasslands such as the Congo Basin of Tanzania and northern Zimbabwe. Growth starts at the onset of the rains, depending on the extent of flooding. Under optimum conditions the previous season's accumulation of dry matter rots away in the water and the new growth is very vigorous. Flowering occurs about half way through the wet season and seeds are shed before the end of the rains. Translocation of nutrients below ground then starts and the subaerial parts dry off although the site may still be flooded. However, node shoots remain green and there is some secondary flowering later. Early fires may not penetrate the Echinochloa stand. However, later in the season the whole stand becomes straw, and fierce fires, resulting in a clean burn, occur. Subsequently vigorous growth from ground level occurs without the incidence of rain, and this provides a green dry- season pasture which may remain available until the commencement of the next rainy season (Vezey-Fitzgerald, 1963). Dry-matter and green-matter yields In Malawi several varieties yield about 25 000 kg green matter per hectare in February, rather less at a second cut in July and before flowering. Suitability for hay and silage It makes useful hay and silage in South Africa. The types with glabrous or smooth leaf-sheaths should be used for hay: those with hairy leaf-sheaths are unpleasant to handle. Value as a standover or deferred feed Excellent dry-season grazing after old growth is burnt off = a common African grazing cycle. No toxicity has been reported. In Malawi, cv. Chirundu is an upright variety and cv. Parfuri a creeping type. It is not frost hardy. Although extremely coarse, indigenous animals graze it readily to ground level at the end of the dry season. The young growth is very palatable after the old material has been burnt off. It is indifferent to day length (Evans, Wardlaw & Williams, 1964), i.e. day neutral. Seasonally flooded grassland and lake shores, floating meadows. Excellent. It is native to seasonally flooded grassland and lake shores. Kuri cattle graze on the inundated antelope grass around Lake Chad (Pursglove, 1976). 2n=36, 54, 72 (Fedorov, 1974). Seed production and harvesting It is a heavy seed producer but sometimes there is low seed germination, and seed is shed during the rains. An excellent fodder grass. This grass and Echinochloa scabra (previously stagnina) are the dominant species in the great floating meadows of the Niger and Lake Chad and from the major part of the sudd at the head-waters of the Nile. The grain is used as human food in some parts of Africa (Chippendall & Crook, 1976). In Nigeria an impure salt or carbonate of soda is made by burning the grass. No quantitative figures have been cited, but it is an important dry-season grazing fodder throughout tropical Africa. Grass genera of the world: Information about botany, ecology etc. of the Eriochloa genus; links to photographs and drawings Vesey-Fitzgerald, 1963. Its dense, tangled, floating stems, rooting at the nodes, provide efficient protection against wave action on the walls of earth dams, or flood-induced erosion of river banks (Rose-Innes, 1977). The soils on which this species grows are often alkaline. Where the drainage is closed the pH may be as high as 9.2, but if drained the soil is normally slightly acid (pH 6) (Vesey-Fitzgerald, 1963). It is burnt in the dry season in the Lake Kyoga swamps in Uganda and nutritious regrowth results. |