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Rocky Mountain Flor Case Study

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Ronnie Estes
Rocky Mountain Flora
April 17, 2015

Timothy

Family/Description
Timothy, Phleum pratense, is in the family Poaceae, the grass family. This grass is a cool-season perennial plant that grows in bunches or clumps. It has a shallow and fibrous root system. Leaves vary in length from a few inches to a foot and are about 1/4 inch wide and narrowing toward the tip. Heads are a dense cylindrical spike-like panicle. Seeds are very small, numerous and usually enclosed in glumes. Timothy is different from most other grasses in that 1 or occasionally 2 of the basal internodes of the stem swell into a bulb-like growth and serve as a storage stem. This characteristic is used for identification of the plant during its early growth stages. …show more content…

It is well adapted to humid cold and cool climates, making it a very useful forage plant in mountain areas and northern habitats. Timothy does not tolerate drought and periods of prolonged high temperatures above 25ºC. Optimum temperatures for growing are 18-22ºC with night temperatures above 10ºC. It is best suited to areas receiving more than 900mm average annual rainfall with a reliable summer rainfall. It makes a poor recovery under limited moisture conditions. Timothy grass grows best on rich, moist bottomlands and on finer textured soils, such as clay loams. It does not do well on coarser soils. Timothy will grow for a time on soils low in fertility, but it is better adapted to a high fertility soil. Timothy prefers a pH of 5.5 to 7.0. It is not well adapted to wet, flat land where water stands for any considerable time, though it can withstand somewhat poorly-drained soils. Timothy thrives in partial shade and can even survive heavy shade. In shaded conditions, however, its carbohydrate reserves are lower and flowering can be delayed or …show more content…

It is used in cool humid, temperate, high rainfall regions for grazing, primarily by cattle. Timothy is often seeded in mixtures with legumes such as alfalfa or clover for better performance, as it is the grass least competitive with legumes, but it is also grown alone to make premium hay, particularly for horses. Timothy is used for pasture, silage, but mostly for hay and is highly responsive to fertilizers.
Erosion control: Timothy can be used with legumes and/or other grasses in a mix for cover purposes, filter strips, waterways, and other critical area applications. Timothy helps stabilize the soil and has been used for erosion control. It is well adapted to intense disturbances and is widely used for rehabilitation of highly disturbed sites: cutover, burned-over, and overgrazed mountain rangelands, sites disturbed by construction of railroads, canals, trails or highways, logging sites and strip mines as well as sites altered for recreational purpose.

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