Hay production in North Europa

Hay feeding might have some advantaged in relation to herd health and reduces the risk for contamination of the milk with spores. Hay production compared to silage is more resource intensive – like use of energy for drying. Hay from two types of herb enriched grass swards and the traditional grassland showed no difference in intake or milk production when compared at three organic farms. Feed efficiency tended to be lower than standards based on silage feeding

Productivity and N-leaching in organic dairy grass-arable crop rotations

Increasing size of organic dairy farms makes grazing of all cropped land inexpedient due to long distance to the milking facilities. We investigated nutrient dynamics and feed production in two dairy crop rotations with differences in proportion of grazing and cutting. One six year crop rotation represents close to the farm buildings (barley undersown with grass-clover - 4 years of grass-clover - spring barley/catch crop) and another represents further away (barley undersown with grass-clover, 2 years of grass-clover -barley/catch crop - maize/catch crop - lupin/catch crop). In each of the crop rotations was made five treatments concerning grazing/cutting strategy and manure application. Results shows that herbage production was high in year 1-4 of grass-clover. Nitrate leaching in the crop rotations were highest in grazed and manured 2-4 years old grasslands, but also following maize and lupin considerable losses occurred despite the presence of catch crops. Following grassland cultivation, a barley silage crop undersown with Italian ryegrass reduced leaching to a minimum

Herbs in high producing organic grasslands – effect of management

In many organic grasslands herbs are established due to their expected beneficial properties for nutritive value and biodiversity. However, knowledge about grassland herbs is limited. Three mixtures were therefore established at different grazing/cutting and fertilization managements to examine the growth potential and feeding value. The competitiveness of the different species varied greatly. Chicory, plantain and caraway were competitive in mixtures with traditional grassland species. Lotus and salad burnet were weak competitors and chervil and sainfoin were very weak. The feeding value was also highly variable. Caraway had high digestibility of organic matter, also compared with the traditional grassland species, whereas plantain and salad burnet had lowest digestibility. The management, grazing, cutting, slurry and sward age, affected the proportion of the herb species. The proportion of caraway increased at cutting, slurry application and sward age. The proportion of plantain also increased at cutting but decreased at slurry application and sward age. The proportion of chicory increased with slurry application and decreased with sward age independently of cutting/grazing. The experiment showed that inclusion of herbs in the sward increased the biodiversity, made the herbage mass more diverse without affecting the dry matter yield

Herbs in grasslands

Ongoing experiments have shown that herbs can constitute a significant proportion of the sward and that management affects the composition. However, the competitive strength and feeding value of the different herb species varied highly

Root biomass and carbon storage in differently managed multispecies temporary grasslands

Species-rich grasslands may potentially increase carbon (C) storage in soil and an experiment was established to investigate C storage in highly productive temporary multi-species grasslands. Plots were established with three mixtures: 1) a herb mixture containing salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor L.), fenugreek (Trogonella foenum-gruecum), chicory (Chicorium intybus L.), caraway (Carum carvi L.), birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.), chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium L.), plantain (Plantago lanceolata L.), lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) and melilot (Melilotus officinalis), 2) 50% of the herb mixture and 50% of a white clover (Trifolium repens L.)/perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) mixture, and 3) 5% of the herb mixture and 95% of the white clover/ryegrass mixture. Management factors were number of cuts per year and fertilizer application. Aboveground biomass increased considerably with increasing content of herbs and with fertilizer application in plots with a 4-cut strategy. With a 6-cut strategy without fertilizer herbs had no effect on the aboveground biomass. In the herb mixture biomass of small roots was lower than in mixtures with white clover and ryegrass. There was a tendency towards increased biomass in the large root fraction with increasing herb content. The experiment indicated increased CO2 evolution following cultivation of multispecies grasslands

Urter i græsmarken

Køerne vil gerne æde de fleste urter, selv om urterne på alle måder er vidt forskellige. Der er forskellige grunde til at etablere urter i græsmarken. Det er især ønskerne om at øge biodiversiteten i marken, at øge køernes ædelyst, at ændre afgrødekvaliteten, så den er bedre for dyrenes sundhed, og at forbedre den ernæringsmæssige kvalitet af de animalske salgsprodukter

Ecosystem services of biodiversity in organic grasslands

The use of multi-species mixtures in herbage production can add value in terms of improved conditions for pollinating insects, better resource utilization, carbon sequestration, yield stability, animal health and product quality. This is the hypothesis of a new project - EcoServe - where the goal is to design grasslands, which increase both the nature value and provide an economically sustainable food production

Vitamin and mineral content and feeding value of different legumes and grass species grown in seven legume-grass mixtures

The aim was to examine if including a range of grassland species could help to balance the diet on organic dairy farms compared with traditional mixtures. Four different grass species and four legume species were grown and harvested in mixtures with one grass and one legume for two growing seasons. The species turned out to have very individual mineral, vitamin and fiber profiles and organic matter digestibility, not influenced by year. Among the legumes red clover (Trifolium pratense) and white clover (Trifolium repens) had the highest feeding value and red clover had further a high content of Co, Cu and Zn. Lucerne (Medicago sativa) had as red clover a high growth potential in mixture but had in general a low content of macro and micro minerals with exception of Se. Lotus (Lotus corniculatus) had a low competitive strength, and the effect of the whole herbage was therefore limited even that the content of the vitamins were high. Among the grasses perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) generally had the highest feeding value, and a higher content of the macro and micro minerals and of vitamins as well than the other grasses (hybrid ryegrass (Lolium hybridum), meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis) and timothy (Phleum pratense)). The only exception was meadow fescue, which had a higher content of alfa-tocopherol

Residual effects of cutting and grazing on grass/clover growth

The residual effect of cutting and grazing during the growing season was investigated in the spring and summer growth in an organic crop rotation with 1-4 year-old grass-clover mixtures of white clover (Trifolium repens L.) and perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) either with or without red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) and with and without slurry. The white clover mixtures had significantly higher yields in spring and summer in swards that were previously grazed compared to previously cut swards, when slurry was applied. The percentage of white clover in spring was considerably reduced by previous grazing and this caused the yield response of slurry application to be highest following grazing. A similar effect on the clover content was not found in the summer growth. With the inclusion of red clover in the sward the effect of previous management on spring yield disappeared. Red clover was very abundant under the cutting regime, while the contents were declining with grazing

Nitrogen management on large organic dairy farms

Large dairy herds need much grassland near the farm. Utilisation and losses of nitrogen in such grass-intensive crop rotations can be controlled by management: In grassland, grazing days or fertiliser input can be reduced, and following grassland cultivation, a barley whole crop for silage undersown with Italian ryegrass can reduce leaching to a minimum