The effects of weather and nutrition on the yield of hay from Palace Leas meadow hay plots, at Cockle Park Experimental Farm, over the period from 1897 to 1980

Coleman, Shirley; Shiel, R. S.; Evans, D. A.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2494.1987.tb02125.x

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…This negative correlation between plant-available P content in soil and biomass production is consistent with the Palace Leas Meadow Hay Plot Experiment (Coleman et al 1987;Shiel and Batten 1988), in which various fertilizer treatments created plant communities of different plant species composition. In the control plot, the content of plant-available P was higher but mean dry matter biomass production was lower than in N-fertilized plots.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: Effect of Soil Chemical Properties on Biomass Production, Plant Species Composition and Species Richness

et al. 2010

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The Rengen Grassland Experiment (RGE), set up on a Nardus grassland in 1941, consists of a control and five fertilizer treatments (Ca, CaN, CaNP, CaNP-KCl and CaNP-K 2 SO 4 ). In 2005, soil chemical properties were analyzed to investigate the effect of soil variables on biomass production, plant species composition and species richness of vascular plants. Further, the effect of sampling scale (from 0.02 to 5.76 m 2 ) on species richness was investigated. Soil properties (plant-available contents of K, P, C:N ratio, and pH) and biomass production were found to be strictly dependent on the fertilizers applied. Diversification of soil P content between treatments with and without P application is still in progress. Biomass production was most positively affected by P and K soil contents under N application. Furthermore, pH had a small positive effect on biomass production, and C:N ratio a moderately negative one. Two types of nutrient limitation were recognized: (1) limitation of total biomass production and (2) limitation of individual plant species. Long-term addition of a limiting nutrient affected the grassland ecosystem in three ways: (1) causing a change in plant species composition without significant increase in total biomass production, (2) causing no change in species composition but with significant increase in total biomass production, and (3) causing substantial change in plant species composition accompanied by significant increase in total biomass production. The explanatory power of all measured soil properties on plant species composition was almost the same as the power of the treatment effect (61.7% versus 62% of explained variability in RDA). The most powerful predictors of plant species composition were soil P, K and Mg contents, pH, and biomass production. The soil P content and biomass production were the only variables leading to a significant negative effect on species richness. An almost parallel increase in species richness with increasing sampling area was detected in all treatments. Constant differences among treatments were independent of sampling area.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: Effect of Soil Chemical Properties on Biomass Production, Plant Species Composition and Species Richness

et al. 2010

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“…Over the earlier period, there was a non-significant decline in total yield on plot 16d, in contrast to an increase on plot 14d which is just significant, assuming that there is no autocorrelation. Coleman et al (1987) likewise found that the yields of fertilized hay in the Palace Leas Experiment in Northumberland were autocorrelated, whereas yields on the unfertilized plots were not.…”

Section: Results Of Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 87%

Trends in herbage yields over the last century on the Rothamsted Long-term Continuous Hay Experiment

et al. 1994

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S U M M A R YYields from five of the plots on the Park Grass Continuous Hay experiment at Rothamsted, started in 1856, were examined to see if any long-term trends could be detected over the last 100 years. Three of the plots examined are unfertilized; two receive inorganic nutrients every year; all are harvested twice a year. In 1959 the harvesting procedure was changed: yields for the periods before and after this change were examined separately and together. On none of the three unfertilized plots was the slope of the regression of total yield (i.e. first and second cuts combined) on time significantly (P < 005) different from zero in either the 1891-1958 or 1960-1992 periods. On both the fertilized plots, there were significant declines in yield with time over the 1960-92 period, assuming that the effects of autocorrelation are sufficiently small to be ignored; there were no consistent changes between 1891 and 1958. There were some significant trends on the five plots when the two cuts were considered separately.A linear regression model was fitted to the data in an attempt to separate the effects of meteorological variables (rainfall and sunshine hours over selected parts of the year) on total yield from possible long-term effects brought about, for example, by the increasing concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere. On four of the five plots this model accounted for between 12 and 21 % of the yield variance in the pre-1959 period and between 45 and 63 % after 1960. On the fifth plot, which received the highest level of N, the model accounted for 29 % of the variance in the first period but only for 16% in the second period. When a linear trend with time was included in the model, this was not significant on any of the plots over the entire 1891-1992 period, although some significant trends appeared when the two periods were considered separately. The model was also fitted with the atmospheric CO 2 concentration in place of the linear trend with time: again there were no consistent trends.Neither changes in the concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere over the last century nor increasing inputs of combined N in rainfall or in dry deposition have had any detectable effects on yield in these plots.

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“…More, or more sophisticated, climatic variables might explain more of the variance in composition. However, we have found that potential soil moisture deficit, which is usually a good correlate of grass growth (e.g., Coleman et al 1989), performs little better than rainfall as an explanatory variable in the PGE (M. Dodd, unpublished data). An alternative explanation is that rainfall controls competitive interactions among the grasses, legumes, and other species, and that the ratio of these components is thus affected by two mechanisms: the first is due to the preferential effect of rainfall on grass growth, and the second is due to the competitive suppression of legumes and other species when grass growth increases, which the success of model 12 (Table 3) suggests probably operates with a time lag of a year.…”

Section: Response Of Community Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rainfall, Biomass Variation, and Community Composition in the Park Grass Experiment

Silvertown¹,

Dodd²,

McConway³

et al. 1994

Ecology

163

112

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We used data on grassland plant community composition over a 90—yr period in the history of the Park Grass Experiment, England to look for relationship between variation in composition and annual variation in rainfall and biomass. This was investigated by regressions of biomass and rainfall on each other, and of these variables separately on each of three different measures of variation in plant community composition. Two of these measures, principal components analysis scores based on variation in species abundance and the ratio by mass of nongrass/grass species, showed significant relationships with biomass variation on many experimental plots, although relationships with rainfall were relatively slight or nonexistent. The third measure employed similarity indices to detect changes in species composition in response to variation in biomass, but failed to find any. Biomass was significantly increased by rainfall on all plots. We propose that variation in community composition was more closely related to biomass variation than to rainfall because rainfall selectively favored the grasses in the community, which we believe competed asymmetrically (for light) with the other species when rainfall was high. The severity of this competition would depend upon biomass more directly than upon rainfall, although it is rainfall that enhanced grass growth. In effect, asymmetric competition magnified the effect of rainfall on community composition.

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The effects of weather and nutrition on the yield of hay from Palace Leas meadow hay plots, at Cockle Park Experimental Farm, over the period from 1897 to 1980

Cited by 17 publications

References 6 publications

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: Effect of Soil Chemical Properties on Biomass Production, Plant Species Composition and Species Richness

The Rengen Grassland Experiment: Effect of Soil Chemical Properties on Biomass Production, Plant Species Composition and Species Richness

Trends in herbage yields over the last century on the Rothamsted Long-term Continuous Hay Experiment

Rainfall, Biomass Variation, and Community Composition in the Park Grass Experiment

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