Floodplain meadows: description, characteristics. Vegetation and soil of floodplain meadows

River valleys, which are flooded annually during high water, are a rich source of quality herbage, which goes to hay. Meadow has always been considered an important part of rural life. Brigades of mowers provided hay for all the cattle in the village. Especially fruitful are floodplain meadows, and grass, mown on them, is the most nutritious for animals.

The concept of

Meadow, located in the immediate vicinity of the river floodplain and annually flooded by its waters, is called floodplain. If you compare it with other meadows, then against their background it will look poor. There is rarely a large number of plant species. This is due to the fact that constant flooding does not fit all the vegetation.

But the quality of pasture grass and hay from it is the highest, as well as the yield. There is also an explanation for this. Every time the water leaves, floodplain floodplain meadows are covered with alluvial deposits, the so-called nylock. It feeds the soil, and in addition to moisturizing creates favorable conditions for abundant and rapid plant growth.

Depending on where the floodplain meadow is located, the soil may differ in composition. But unlike other types of pastures, all soils are fertile, loose and well ventilated. The river valleys can vary in terms of the time of flooding.

Duration of flooding

Depending on the time for which water comes from the coast, floodplain meadows are divided:

• Short-term, flooded for up to 15 days. They are found near small rivers or near water bodies with high banks.
• Sredneplymennye covered with water for a period of 15 to 25 days. Such meadows are found most often in floodplains of large reservoirs.
• Dolgo-variable meadows can stand under water for 25 days or more. Such species are most common and located near large rivers.

From the time of flooding depends herbal composition, filling the floodplain meadow. There are plants that easily tolerate a prolonged spill. These include the wheat grass creeping, marsh, ordinary mannik, reed canary and others. In fact, in nature there are not so many kinds of grasses capable of withstanding flooding for 40-50 days.

The medium-resistant grass stand that filled the floodplain meadow includes: reed and meadow fescue, creeping and hybrid clover, meadow grassland and others.

Among the less resistant to flooding grasses there are ryegrasses, sowing alfalfa, meadow clover and a hedgehog.

Resistance of meadow plants to colds

The entire vegetation of floodplain meadows can also be divided into species according to winter hardiness:

• Very resistant to frost - Siberian brome grass, giant spinning grass, crochet grass, Beckmania vulgaris, fescue, sweet clover and yellow alfalfa.
• Herbs resistant to colds - meadow timothy, red fescue, horned lagoon and others.
• Medium-resistant plants - meadow fescue, hybrid alfalfa, meadow clover, hedgehog.
• Low-resistant grass - pasture and multi-horned ryegrass.

The greatest herbage, and hence the quantity and quality of hay, are floodplain meadows, planted with frost-resistant plant species. But even for them, very low temperatures or a large layer of snow can be dangerous and can affect yields.

The near-river part of the floodplain

By location, the types of floodplain meadows are divided into the riverine, central and middle part of the floodplain.

The river bed is located in the immediate vicinity of the river bed. Usually it occupies a small strip of land with sand deposits. It is best to grow cereals in the riverine floodplain meadows. In turn, this part can be conditionally divided into 3 types:

1. High level - these are meadows located either in the forest and covered with a coarse grass stand (cutter, cowworm), or in the steppe zone, where a mixture of meadow grasses, grasses and steppe representatives (the citron, tonkonog, tizza and others) occurs.
2. Flooded meadow of medium level. Here there are mixed herbs, leguminous, valuable broadleaf cereals.
3. Low-level meadows. They are distinguished by dampness, which most of all like wheat grass, white grass, meadow grass, bekmania, canary and others.

The river meadows are most suitable for the growth of rhizome and umbrella with a well-developed root system.

The meadows of the central floodplain

This is the largest area of floodplain meadows, and it is immediately behind the riverine zone. Here, sandy-clayey deposits with a large variety of herbs are found most often. Since these are the least flooded areas, they often lack moisture, which leads to a fairly low grass stand.

Here, in large quantities grow loose cereal grass: timothy, high ryegrass, meadow fescue, hedgehog, foxgrass meadow, common wolf and others. Some of them, for example a foxtail, yield 2 crops per season, which allows harvesting from 20 to 50 centners of hay per hectare. All these perennial herbs grow in one place up to 10-15 years, giving high yields of feed from year to year.

The middle and lower levels of the floodplain

Meadows, located in the middle part of the floodplain, are considered the best for yield and quality of grass. Most often here you can find from grassy timothy, meadow and red fescue, foxtail and bluegrass. From the family of legumes you can find yellow alfalfa, red and white clover, mouse peas, rank, horned lapwing. From herbage - buttercup, geranium meadow, cornflower, bed-matt, ordinary nivian, yarrow and others. This diversity of species is due to the particularly high content of silt in the soil, which settles after the descent of water.

For the lower level of the floodplain (priterrasnaya zone), the relief is characterized by a lowering of the relief, which often leads to swamping, and in some cases even to the formation of peat swamps.

Here, the soil does not have such aeration, as in other types of floodplain meadows, so you can meet real thickets of willow, alder, nettle and buckwheat. Well-behaved "cereal" in these places - marshland grassland, meadow foxtail, pike sod, creeping polnitsa.

If environmental conditions permit, then in the priterrasnyh floodplain meadows you can meet in large quantities hygrophytes - sedge, reeds, reeds, cotton grass.

Marshland

Wetlands floodplain meadows are usually located in the most flooded places, where water can stand from 50 to 95 days. They are characterized by peaty-gley soils, on which water can reach a level of up to 2 m or more. After the flood, this area is still very wet for a long time. Most often there are such kinds of plants:

• Cereals: reed two-cedar, meadow foxgrass, pike sod, popping mannik and meadow oatmeal.
• Mixed grass: sour sorrel, starfish, grayling, swamp forget-me-not, buttercup creeping, cinquefoil straight and elmatic tavolga.
• Of the varieties of sedge: millet, fox, hare, acute and early.

Due to swampiness, these meadows are rarely used for pasture, although for hay the plants growing here are suitable and have high nutritional properties.

Care of the floodplain meadow

Whatever the characteristics of the floodplain meadows at the location or duration of flooding, they need to be improved. First of all, it concerns vegetation in the middle and upper zone of the floodplain. Experienced experts know that 30% of the meadow is occupied by cereals and legumes. To increase their growth, they spend harrowing in a couple of tracks, which simultaneously cleared away debris and compared bumps.

It is recommended to conduct these works immediately after the water has come down. In the event that after the flood there is an intensive growth of herbage, harrowing should not be done, but it is better to postpone this work for a while after haymaking.

The grass must be mowed for the first time before the beginning of flowering, since if it is done during its earing, then in the course of time the number of its species will considerably decrease in the meadow.

If two-bow technology is used, the stems must be 4-5 cm high at the first cut, and 6-7 cm in the second. This will allow the plants to maintain the maximum of nutrients that accumulate in the lower part of the stem to easily transfer frost.

Fertilizing floodplain meadows

To improve the quality and productivity of floodplain meadows, mineral fertilizers should be introduced into the soil. This will not only increase the growth of grass, but also affect its nutritional properties. Mineral fertilizers will help increase yields, which from year to year will only grow, and make plants more resistant to adverse natural factors.

As experts note, the regular application of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers in the first 2-3 years increases the yield by 0.5 tons per hectare. After the fifth year, the indicators averaged 2.6 tonnes / ha. At the same time there is an increased growth of legumes, which improve the nitrogen fixation of the soil, which leads to an increase in the growth of grasses and forbs.