Vishna Weerarathne, a PhD student at Massey University, has identified ‘elite’ grass plants that can use water more efficiently, providing a potential tool for farmers battling regular dry spells. Massey University researcher Vishna Weerarathne​ has identified ‘elite’ rye grass plants that use water more efficiently, providing a potential tool for farmers battling regular dry spells. She researched how the grass drew up water out of dry soil, the root depth and the amount of moisture that remained in the soil at the end of the experiment. Supplied Vishna Weerarathne discovered better-performing grass plants are deeper rooted and have stronger water drawing power. “In hot summer weather ryegrass uses about 750 litres of water for each kilogram of pasture dry matter grown and a cow eats about 1.7kg of dry matter to produce a litre of milk.

Source: Stuff August 02, 2021 17:00 UTC