Performance of meadow fescue accessions under management-intensive grazing

Meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis Huds.) is a pasture grass that has been little used in North America since the introduction of its higher yielding relative, tall fescue (F. arundinacea Schreb.). The objectives of this study were to quantify genotypic variation for traits related to performance under management-intensive grazing (MIG) within the USDA-NPGS collection of meadow fescue accessions, to relate that variation to the geographic sources, and to compare these meadow fescue accessions to a range of tall fescue cultivars. One hundred-sixty meadow fescue accessions and 10 tall fescue cultivars were grazed for 2 yr under a free-choice MIG system. Meadow fescue accessions were an average of 3.0% lower in net herbage accumulation (NHA; 8.33 vs. 8.60 Mg ha(-1)), but 14.7% higher in apparent intake (3.13 vs. 3.58 Mg ha(-1)) and 15.1% higher in apparent preference (31.7 vs. 36.4%) compared with tall fescue cultivars. Naturalized meadow fescue accessions had greater apparent intake and preference and were lower in crown rust resistance than cultivated meadow fescue accessions. Cultivated meadow fescue accessions were less variable for all traits than naturalized accessions, reflecting nearly a century of breeding activity in Europe. Most of the variability among accessions was accounted for by geographic sources. Naturalized accessions from the Russian Black Sea region generally ranked most favorably for all traits.