Sub clover, cocksfoot and lucerne combine to improve dryland stock production

Abstract

The temporal (seasonal) pattern of dryland pasture and stock production from four cocksfoot based pastures (mixed with balansa, Caucasian, subterranean or white clover), a ryegrass/white clover pasture and a pure lucerne crop were compared over 2 years (2004/05 and 2005/ 06). Subterranean clover with cocksfoot provided high legume content pasture giving higher stock production than other pasture mixtures from August to October. This complemented the high yields and stock production provided by lucerne from mid September to January in 2004/05. However, a dry winter followed by spring snow resulted in lucerne production similar to other pastures in 2005/06. Cocksfoot based pastures provided more maintenance feed than perennial ryegrass during a dry summer (2005/06) but ryegrass/white clover provided higher stock production in wet summer conditions (2004/ 05). These results suggest a range of pasture species are necessary to cope with the seasonal climate variability typically experienced in dryland farm systems. Keywords: balansa clover, Caucasian clover, Dactylis glomerata, Lolium perenne, Medicago sativa, pasture growth rates, ryegrass, sheep production, Trifolium ambiguum, Trifolium michelianum, Trifolium repens, Trifolium subterraneum, white clover

Maximising the subterranean clover content on a summer-dry Wairarapa hill-country farm through grazing management

“…These results reflect those from the South Island where pastures have been successfully renovated with sub clover cultivars released since 1993 (Costello & Costello 2003;Ates et al 2010). This outcome is consistent with the recommendations of Brown et al (2006) that new sub clover pastures are spelled for 6 to 8 weeks from October in the first year to develop a seed bank and that in the years following lighter grazing or de-stocking will encourage further seed production when necessary.…”

“…Ecotypes of the sub clover cultivars 'Mt Barker' and 'Tallarook' are resident in many North Island east coast hill-country pastures (Suckling et al 1983;Macfarlane & Sheath 1984) from oversowing from the 1930s to 1960s (Smetham 2003). Sub clover can produce highquality feed early in spring (Brown et al 2006;Mills et al 2008) and fix about 30 kg N/t clover dry matter (DM) (Lucas et al 2010) which improves productivity and maximises water-use efficiency of sub clover-grass pastures (Tonmukaykul et al 2009).…”

Phosphorus response and optimum pH ranges of twelve pasture legumes grown in an acid upland New Zealand soil under glasshouse conditions

“…As such white clover is poorly suited to dryland low fertility conditions and performs well in high fertility soils at pH 6.0 or higher in high rainfall environments (Black et al 2000). Subterranean clover (Trifolium subterranean) has also been researched for this environment (Brown et al 2006;Hayes et al 2008a). However, farmers require a more diverse range of both perennial and annual legume species for their dryland farming systems (Brown and Green 2003).…”

Yield of subterranean clover after post-emergence herbicide application for broadleaf weed control

“…It is used in summer dry areas where white clover (T. repens L.) fails to thrive (Knowles et al 2003). Sub clover has high growth in early spring compared with other perennial legume options, which coincides with the high feed demand of lactating ewes (Brown et al 2006). Incorporating sub clover into a farming system has been shown to increase pre-weaning lamb growth rates by ~30% and therefore increase prime lamb numbers on dryland farms (Grigg et al 2008).…”