Preliminary evaluation of native grasses collected from alpine rangelands in Qinghai Province, China, as materials for breeding grazing-tolerant fine herbage.

Development and introduction of productive, high-quality herbage grasses tolerant of heavy grazing is an urgent necessity for sustainable use of rangelands in Qinghai Province, north-west China, where degradation of rangelands caused mainly by overstocking has become a serious problem. Four hundred and sixty-six native grass materials (species and types) were collected in the summer of 2002 from grazed alpine rangelands (2500–4000 m a.s.l.) in Qinghai Province, as original materials for breeding the target grasses. The plants were initially grown in the nurseries in Xining and Gancha until 2003, when 177 materials were preliminarily selected. Then, 147 materials that formed the most part of the 177 materials were grown in the new nursery in Xining and evaluated in 2005 for their productivity, palatability, persistency and seed yield. Two promising materials of Agrostis gigantea, three of Elymus cylindricus, eight of Elymus dahuricus, 10 of Elymus nutans, 14 of Elymus sibiricus, one of Puccinellia diffusa, five of Puccinellia distans, one of Puccinellia glauca, four of Puccinellia hauptiana, two of Puccinellia roborovski and four of Puccinellia tenuiflora were selected for future evaluation under grazing.