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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-1161
Napier Grass
Cenchrus purpureus
Napier Grass is a giant tropical forage grass grown for cut-and-carry feed, capable of shooting up several metres in as little as two months and yielding up to 80 tonnes of dry matter per hectare a year under heavy fertiliser. It spreads by creeping stolons rather than seed, so cutting it back every six to eight weeks does double duty: the young growth is what stock actually want to eat, and the same cycle keeps it from building into an unmanageable thicket. Fed as a sole ration it has poisoned cattle with nitrate after heavy rain broke a drought, so it is grown alongside other forage rather than fed alone.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 8–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Moist · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 4.5–8.2
- Plant type
- Grass
- Mature height
- 6.6–13.1 ft
- Mature spread
- 1.6–3.3 ft
- Plant spacing
- 1.6–3.3 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- Root
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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