BACKGROUND AND AIMS Current agricultural practices are based on growing monocultures or binary mixtures over large areas, with a resultant impoverishing effect on biodiversity at several trophic levels. The effects of increasing the biodiversity of a sward mixture on dry matter yield and unsown species invasion were studied. METHODS A field experiment involving four grassland species [two gra...

The effects of nitrate (NO3-) supply on shoot morphology, vertical distribution of shoot and root biomass and total nitrogen (N) acquisition by two perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) cultivars (AberElan and Preference) and two white clover (Trifolium repens L.) cultivars (Grasslands Huia and AberHerald) were studied in flowing nutrient culture. Cultivars were grown from seed as monocultures...

Rust diseases cause significant damage in forage and seed crops of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), which is highly heterozygous and heterogeneous and thus presents difficulty in genetic analysis. There has been no definitive demonstration of the existence of pathotypes for stem rust or other rusts of perennial ryegrass, although experiments with crown rust (Puccinia coronata) of this host ...

Bacillus mycoides GM6LP is an endophyte isolated from plant tissues of Lolium perenne L. Here, we report its draft genome sequence (6.2 Mb), which contains 96 contigs and 6,129 protein-coding genes. Knowledge about its genome will enable us to evaluate the potential use of GM6LP as a plant growth-promoting bacterium.

Lolium multiflorum plants were grown under a low- or high-light regime until third leaves had emerged to one-third their final length and then were transferred to a contrasting light regime. At this stage, the leaf possesses a tissue-age gradient from tip to base; thus, the reversibility of light-acclimated responses as a function of the degree of differentiation was analyzed in individual leav...

A grazing study was undertaken to examine the effect of maintaining three levels of pre-grazing herbage mass (HM) on dairy cow performance, grass dry matter (DM) production and output from perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) pastures. Cows were randomly assigned to one of three pre-grazing HM treatments: 1150 - Low HM (L), 1400 - Medium HM (M) or 2000 kg DM/ha - High HM (H). Herbage accumula...

The aim of this study was the isolation of Pseudomonas sp. and Bacillus sp. strains from rhizospheric soil and monitoring the impact of two isolates denoted as P12 (Pseudomonas sp.) and B1 (Bacillus sp.) on the parameters of English ryegrass (Lolium perenne) yield and activity of the soil microbial communities. During 2012-2014, a plot experiment was set up following the randomized block system...