Grass of the month
Lolium multiflorum: Annual
Ryegrass (Italian Ryegrass or
Westerwolds Ryegrass)
This annual grass is highly nutritional and a popular winter planted pasture for mainly the diary industry of South Africa
L. multiflorum:
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Can be planted as pure swards, mixtures or over-sown into perennial pastures
Is a dense, soft tufted grass
Leaf blades are green to dark green, hairless and shiny
It can grow up to 400 mm tall
It is best adapted to areas with long seasons of cool, moist weather, and well drained soils but can be tolerant to a wide
range of soils and climates.
It is easily confused with Lolium perenne but can be distinguished by its long awns (up to 10 mm long)
There are a number of different cultivars available in South Africa
Herbicide-resistant ryegrass is a serious problem in Western Cape grain-producing areas. A study by Ferreira et al. (2015)
found that 48% of this problematic ryegrass were L. multiflorum x L. perenne.
Information taken from van Oudtshoorn (2002), Abraha (2015), Ferreira et al. (2015), and Van der Colf et al. (2016).
Figure 1 & 2: Lolium multiflorum (Source: keyserver.lucidcentral.org)
Grassroots
Vol 19
No 4
November 2019
Figure 3 & 4: Kikuyu-ryegrass
pastures on the Outeniqua Re-
search Farm (Source: M. Murphy)
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