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Water Requirement, Yield, and Tolerance to Clipping of Some Cool-Season, Semiarid Range Grasses¹

A water requirement study was conducted for 689 days with 8 accessions of cool-season Agropyrons and a single accession of Elymus junceus grown in 3.8-liter cans in a greenhouse. Five plants of A. desertorum Nordan were cloned. Other accessions, including A. desertorum Nordan, were grown from seed. All accessions were subjected to 11 successive harvests. A. sibiricum PI-314056 was most efficient in water use and also had the highest yields. Mortality of A. inerme was high beginning with the fifth harvest. One-fifth of the plants of A. desertorum Nordan and commercial A. cristatum were dead or nearly dead by the llth harvest. Only E. junceus Vinall and A. sibiricum PI-314056 had no mortality throughout the 11 harvests. A comparison of clones of Nordan with plants from seed indicated that 62% of the total variance was genetic. Differences in water requirement within the cloned Nordan suggest that it would respond to selection for efficiency of water use. The first harvest was not a good indicator of the mean yield or water requirement for the other 10 harvests.

Key Words: Growth • Water use • Fertilization • Longevity

² Range Scientist and Agronomist, ARS, USDA, Logan, Utah 84322.

Received for publication September 11, 1972.