The Effect Of Grazing Compared With Cutting, at Different Frequencies, On a Lucerne-Cocksfoot Ley

Summary

Grazing with sheep was compared with cutting, in each case at three frequencies, four, five and six defoliations per year, on a lucerne—cocksfoot ley. The treatments were applied in one year and their effects measured during that year and at cuts in June and August of the following year. One experiment began in 1963 in the second harvest year of a ley and a second began in 1964, on an adjacent site, in the third harvest year of the ley. Cutting four times in the year allowed lucerne to persist satisfactorily in both experiments. In the 1964 experiment cutting five or six times and grazing rather than cutting had no apparent, serious, adverse effect on the lucerne compared with cutting four times. In the 1963 experiment, however, increasing the number of cuts and grazing rather than cutting had a large adverse effect on the lucerne, and in the most extreme treatment, grazing six times, the proportion of lucerne was reduced to 2 % of total herbage yield the following June compared with 66% on the four-cut treatment. The contrasting results in the two experiments seem associated with weather differences, 1964 being a much drier, more sunny growing season than 1963, and perhaps with the differences in age of sward, individual lucerne plants perhaps having bigger roots with more reserves in 1964 than in 1963. During the treatment year increasing frequency of defoliation tended to increase the N content of both species and grazing compared with cutting generally increased the N content of cocksfoot. During the year following the treatment year the N content of the two species was little affected by the experimental treatments. The implications for farm practice are considered.