Pasture monitoring project

Research Supervisors:
Professor Ted Wolfe and Peter Cregan

Research Staff:
John Paul, PhD student

Collaborators:
Graeme Sandral and Brian Dear, NSW Agriculture; Dr Mark Peoples and Bob Gault, CSIRO Plant Industry

Funding:
$82,200 (GRDC Project UCS11)

Project Summary:
The work began in 1994 on the topic "Critical parameters for monitoring ley pastures", and John Paul finalised his PhD thesis towards the end of 1998. A range of pastures, in experimental and on-farm situations, were monitored in 1994, 1995 and 1996 in terms of population, cover, botanical composition, biomass and growth parameters. Benchmarks and profiles of these parameters were developed and, using the GrassGro module of GRAZPLAN, these statistics were compared to the profiles of pasture productivity and biomass expected in grazed pastures. Highlights of the work included:

• the successful use of a simple rod-point device to measure cover, botanical composition and (with height) biomass;
• the importance of seedling number (>1000 plants m^-2) as a factor that controls ground cover (>30% needed at all times, to minimise soil erosion), early growth and winter biomass;

• the definition of seasonal benchmark values for biomass and growth expected from healthy legume leys;
• a demonstration that in June, before winter cleaning is attempted, a botanical composition