Comprehensive Plant Species and Pasture Management

Geology24 Oct 20264.91 KB

Pasture and Forage Classification

Fescue: Tall fescue and meadow fescue (Festuca). Utilized for fine fodder, lawns, and turf. Festuca arundinacea is suitable for mowing or grazing forage, and pastures are enduring.
Pasto: Any plant resource serving as food for livestock or wildlife, extending to forage. Includes grazing, pasture, and woody herbaceous plants.
Prairie Grass: Herbaceous, sown, monophyletic, and temporal.
Prado: Spontaneous, dense plant community that remains perpetually moist and green.
Grassland: Natural plant community, often of lower quality and herbaceous, frequently utilized for grazing.

Pasto Therophytes: Herbaceous communities dominated by annual species that survive unfavorable seasons by forming seeds.
Non-Nitrophilous Therophytic Pastures: Herbaceous plant communities colonizing poorly evolved soils on diverse natural substrates. Class Helianthemetea guttati.
Non-Nitrophilous Eutrophic Therophytic Pastures: Colonize limestone soils with Brachypodium and Medicago minima.
Nitrophilous Therophytic Pastures: Established by therophytes with a nitrophilous character, often found along roadsides or as ruderal weeds. Order Thero-Brometalia.
Temporarily Flooded Therophytic Pastures: Temporarily submerged grasses such as Agrostis salmantica.

Genus Agrostis: Found in acidic areas. Species include Agrostis capillaris, Agrostis stolonifera, Agrostis tenuis, and Agrostis palustris.
Mesophytic Grass: A predominantly herbaceous plant community adapted to climates characterized by cold temperatures and high humidity, with optimal growth during the Eurosiberian period.

Advantages of Legumes in Fields: High nutritional quality for animals, providing palatable and highly digestible forage species.
Key Legume Species: Trifolium repens (white clover) is a widely distributed perennial legume found in various soils, considered a top forage species in northern Spain. Trifolium pratense tolerates shade up to 1800m, though excessive summer production can cause bloat in animals. Lupinus and Medicago are extended across northern Spain and require moderate fertility.

Ligula: The unique petal-like structure in grasses.
Auricula: The prolongation inside the leaf blade.
Plant Families:
- Leguminosae: Ulex, Trifolium, Medicago, Melilotus, Cytisus.
- Ericaceae: Calluna, Erica.
- Poaceae (Gramineae): Dactylis, Festuca, Agrostis, Lolium, Nardus.
- Rosaceae: Rubus.

Brachypodium pinnatum: Found on moderately deep and well-drained soils.
Nardus stricta: Cervuno grass, frequent in silicate and acidic zones.
Caricetea curvulae: Psychroxerophilous and acidophilous Eurosiberian plants found in deep, moist mountain soils. Festucion eskia increases in abundance on sloping lastonares.
Nardetea strictae: Acidophilous Eurosiberian plants in cold, edaphohygrophilous zones containing soil moisture.
Festuco-Brometea: Basophilic mesophytic plants, dense Siberian or Mediterranean communities formed by herbaceous species like Bromus erectus and Brachypodium pinnatum.
Molinio-Arrhenatheretea: Acidophilous lawns, deep soils, and rush beds with lively, moist herbaceous species including Arrhenatheretalia, Molinetalia, and Plantaginetalia.

Redileo or Majadeo (Sheepfold Manuring): Traditional fertilization practices developed on subterraneans-oligotrophic siliceous substrates with Ibero-Atlantic distribution, used to improve soil fertility and regulate grazing practices.