Offered Papers Theme B: Grassland and the Environment
Description
Grass-legume mixtures offer several advantages over monocultures in forage-animal production systems (Haynes, 1980). In fact, in grass-legume mixtures forage yield and quality are generally higher compared to grass monocultures also due to more efficient soil N-utilisation (Ta & Faris, 1987); furthermore grasses often utilise some of the N fixed by legumes (Malhi et al., 2002). Legumes do not generally require the addition of N fertiliser due to symbiotically fixed N, but the yield of the grass component in a mixture may be further improved with N application. The objective of this study was to investigate forage yield and quality of berseem and annual ryegrass grown in pure stands, and in mixture, at different N fertiliser rates.
Included in
Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons, Soil Science Commons, Weed Science Commons
Forage Quality and Yield of Berseem Clover and Annual Ryegrass Grown in Pure and Mixed Stands in Relation to Different N Application Rates
Grass-legume mixtures offer several advantages over monocultures in forage-animal production systems (Haynes, 1980). In fact, in grass-legume mixtures forage yield and quality are generally higher compared to grass monocultures also due to more efficient soil N-utilisation (Ta & Faris, 1987); furthermore grasses often utilise some of the N fixed by legumes (Malhi et al., 2002). Legumes do not generally require the addition of N fertiliser due to symbiotically fixed N, but the yield of the grass component in a mixture may be further improved with N application. The objective of this study was to investigate forage yield and quality of berseem and annual ryegrass grown in pure stands, and in mixture, at different N fertiliser rates.
