The effect of date of winter grazing on the yield of a lucerne-grass ley

Abstract

It has been shown that lucerne/grass mixtures, especially those containing a high proportion of cocksfoot, can make a valuable contribution to the winter feeding of livestock when the autumn growth is allowed to stand in the field until the winter. For instance, Hughes (1954) showed that it was possible to carry store cattle right through the winter on such herbage with little supplementary feeding. Other experimental work (Barker, Hanley & Ridgman, 1955) has shown that mowing or grazing this autumn growth in September may lead to poorer production in subsequent years than October defoliation. It therefore seemed desirable to determine the effect of date of grazing in the winter on the subsequent yield of a lucerne/grass ley and two experiments for this purpose were carried out at Cambridge from 1953 to 1957.

The effect of winter and early spring grazing by sheep on subsequent sward production

“…Frame (1970) compared a much larger number of winter grazing treatments, but allowed the sheep access to a particular plot for only 1 day in any 1 month. Hanley, Ridgman & Whitear (1964) investigated the special case of lucerne-grass swards, comparing five dates of grazing in winter with no grazing. The present experiments were designed to examine in more detail than those of Wilcox (1962) and Lockhart et al (1969) the effect of the period or periods in the winter when sheep are allowed access to grassland and to do so in a way which is closer to farm practice in this area than the method adopted by Frame (1970), and also to examine much more fully than any of the above authors the effect of the date in late winter-early spring on which the sheep are taken off the sward.…”