The effect of cutting treatments on the dry matter production of Lolium perenne L. and Dactylis glomerata L.

The effect of cutting treatments on grass production was studied both in the field and in experiments under controlled conditions. Cutting limited the increase in dry matter for a certain time. Thereafter dry weight of plants continued to increase at the same proportional rate as in undisturbed plants. The relation leaf blade dry weight/total dry weight was constant for vegetative grasses. When this ratio was reduced by cutting, the production of leaf dry matter increased over that of other plant parts, until the initial relation was restored.

The distribution of increases in dry matter over herbage and the rest of the plant was the same before and some time after cutting. Different levels of cutting had no effect on proportional increase in dry matter production.

A cutting height of 5 cm was optimum for herbage production after a single cut and 10 cm for repeated cuttings.

Vernalized plants gave more herbage dry matter at the first cut; vegetative ones at subsequent cuts.

With Lolium tillering stopped for a certain period after cutting, whose length decreased with increase in reserves or cutting height. These factors had no effect on tillering of Dactylis.