Demography of Pasture Legumes

Plant development controls leaf area expansion in alfalfa plants competing for light

“…Light responses are mostly inferred from density experiments in pure stands, where a trade-off between plant density and the number of shoots per plant is usually reported Sprague, 1962, 1963;Mattera et al, 2013), leading to relatively steady shoot density. In mixtures, however, the persistence of the legume is an issue, and such substitutive relationships are not ensured (Jones and Carter, 1989). Density-dependent mortality can lead to a permanent decline of the legume proportion in favour of the companion species.…”