Competition between Dactylis glomerata L. and Taraxacum officinale L in a controlled environment

In meadows and pastures the presence of many kinds of species with different biological cycles makes the competition between plants an extremely complicated phenomenon. The experimentation with plants of different patterns of growth under controlled conditions could offer useful information for the understanding of the phenomenon of competition. For this purpose there were chosen plants with distinct morphological differences, i.e. Dactylis glomerata L. (cocksfoot) and Taraxacum officinale L. (dandelion). The experiment took place under constant environmental conditions (climate and nutrition through firtirrigation with solution of micro- and macro- elements). The following treatments of competition were applied: shoot, root / shoot, root and that of monoculture of both species. Some morphological characteristics of the plants were measured (height, length of longest leaf, leaf area, tillers, root depth and dry weight of shoot, leaves and root). The last (fourth) observation was the most characteristic. According to this observation, it is concluded that cocksfoot was dominant in most cases of competition. The only exception where dandelion competed successfully cocksfoot was the shoot treatment. Dandelion achieved the best values in most cases as a monoculture. So, the main finding for dandelion was that this species can not compete with cocksfoot.