REED CANARY GRASS (PHALARIS ARUNDINACEA L.) IN NATURAL BIOCENOSIS OF LATVIA, RESEARCH EXPERIMENTS AND PRODUCTION FIELDS

Abstract In recent years, perennial grasses have not been considered only as a forage crop but focus has shifted to their usage as an energy crop. Special interest has been caused by reed canary grass, which is widely spread in natural biocenosis. The scientific expeditions have been organized and all regions of Latvia have been explored to gather material and information about biodiversity of perennial species of wild grasses. Several natural populations of reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) were collected under different soil and climate conditions. The accessions were of different quality in many respects depending on collection site. Samples taken from the marshy meadows on lakeshore of the Lake Lubana were coming into flowers unevenly over a longer period of time and formed a little number of culms, whereas samples collected on the banks of the River Daugava were earlier and formed considerably more culms and were coming into flowers evenly over a shorter period of time. Breeding on reed canary grass in Latvia has not been done previously. Attention to the wild populations of RCG usually has been focused on their feeding value. Though, these populations have a good potential for selection of a new varieties intended for varied purposes. The field trials with ten wild accessions of RCG were established, and winter hardiness, growth intensity and various phenological observations were evaluated. After a comprehensive evaluation of the wild populations by important economic and morphologic characteristics, some valuable samples were found. The population 'Brigena' proved such valuable characteristics as good winter hardiness, high dry matter yields, and intensive development of productive culms. In recent years, consumption of reed canary grass as energy feedstock has increased rapidly in Latvia. It is grown by farmers in all regions and the total planted area has exceeded 800 ha. Mostly are grown varieties 'Marathon' (USA) and 'Bamse' (Sweden). DM yields obtained by farmers in Latvia on average are 6 -9 t ha -1 . Further research has to be continued