The influence of timing and planting proportion on the intraspecific competitiveness ability of drunken horse grass (Achnatherum inebrians (Hance) Keng) by fungal endophyte infection

Abstract

Drunken horse grass (Achnatherum inebrians (Hance) Keng) is a toxic perennial bunchgrass species native to several provinces in Northwest China (Zhang et al. 2015a). Due to its exceptional tolerance to various environmental stresses including drought (Cui et al. 2022), grazing (Yao et al. 2015), cold temperatures (Chen et al. 2016), sandy environments (Wang et al. 2021), pests (He et al. 2021), pathogenic fungi (Kou et al. 2021), and heavy metals (Jin et al. 2022), drunken horse grass is capable of enduring these challenges.