Track 2‐6‐1: Developing Intensive and Extensive Forage Production with Environment Friendly Technologies and Adoption of Mechanization
Description
Lucerne (or alfalfa; Medicago sativa L.)-based pastures play an important role in livestock and mixed farms (croplivestock) in Australia. If lucerne is to be more widely adopted, it will be important that landholders are able to plan to maximize its benefits to their livestock enterprises (usually as a part of a diverse feed base), as well as assess the benefits and minimizing the costs of lucerne phases to subsequent crops. However, the ability to accurately model lucerne plant physiology across the full spectrum of environments, genotypes and cultivars remains elusive. This study aimed to review and revise the description of lucerne (i.e. the lucerne “parameter set”) in the GRAZPLAN pasture growth model (Moore et al., 1997) to improve its predictions of growth rate and nutritive value; and validate the predictions of the new parameter set against experimental data sets from different areas within Australia.
Included in
Improved Modelling of Lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) Production for Grazing Livestock
Lucerne (or alfalfa; Medicago sativa L.)-based pastures play an important role in livestock and mixed farms (croplivestock) in Australia. If lucerne is to be more widely adopted, it will be important that landholders are able to plan to maximize its benefits to their livestock enterprises (usually as a part of a diverse feed base), as well as assess the benefits and minimizing the costs of lucerne phases to subsequent crops. However, the ability to accurately model lucerne plant physiology across the full spectrum of environments, genotypes and cultivars remains elusive. This study aimed to review and revise the description of lucerne (i.e. the lucerne “parameter set”) in the GRAZPLAN pasture growth model (Moore et al., 1997) to improve its predictions of growth rate and nutritive value; and validate the predictions of the new parameter set against experimental data sets from different areas within Australia.
