Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata)

Origin: Native to North America
Use: Perennial, warm season, introduced grass that provides fair grazing for wildlife; good grazing for livestock.
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Plant Description:
General  Characteristics of Orchardgrass
Life Span  Perennial
Growth Form  tall, erect, bunchgrass
Management:
Seeding Rate 
40" Rows: 
Broadcast: 
 
Planting Date   
Planting Depth  
pH requirement 5.0 to 7.5
Rainfall requirement 32 to 65 inches
Soil texture  Sandy: 
Loam: 
Clay: 

Low
High
Low
Cold Tolerance: High
General  Provides fair grazing for wildlife; good grazing for livestock.
ID Features:
Habit: 		Tall perennials in large clumps, with creeping rhizomes.
Culms: 		60-120 cm. tall, tufted, simple.
Blades: 	7-25 cm. long, 2-8 mm. wide, long acuminate, flat, scabrous on 
                surfaces and margins.
Sheaths: 	Upper shorter than the internodes, lower longer, flattened, 
                smooth to rough.
Ligules: 	Membranous, 2-5 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Panicles 5-20 cm. long, contracted, with the spikelets crowded
                at the ends of the few stiff branches in one-sided headlike clusters, 
                branches ascending or spreading in flower, contracted after flowering.
Spikelets: 	5-9 mm. long, 2-5-flowered, crowded, compressed, nearly sessile
                in dense fascicles, rachilla finally disarticulating between the florets.
Glumes: 	1-3-nerved, acute often mucronate, the second the larger, 
                hispid ciliate on the keel.
Lemmas: 	4-6 mm. long, about 5-nerved, compressed-keeled, pointed or 
                short-awned, more rigid than the glumes, more or less hispidulous, 
                ciliate on the keel.
Palea:  	Nearly as long as its lemma, 2-keeled.
Habitat: 	Fields, meadows, and waste places.  May-June.
Use: 		Commonly cultivated as a meadow and pasture grass; of most 
                value in mid spring and in somewhat
		shaded situations.
Synonyms:	Dactylis glomerata L. ssp. glomerata
		Dactylis glomerata L. var. ciliata Peterm.
		Dactylis glomerata L. var. detonsa Fries
		Dactylis glomerata L. var. vivipara Parl.	
Special Notes:
Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) Information #1
Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) Information #2
Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) Information #3
Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) Information #3