Pasture species for drought-prone lower slopes in the South Island high country

Abstract

<jats:p>One hundred and twenty one cultivars and accessions of conventional and alternative legume, grass and forb species have been assessed over a widely variable lower sunny face landscape mosaic within the semi-arid tussock grasslands. Results are presented for assessments carried out 7-8 years after planting. Caucasian clover, hairy canary clover, birdsfoot trefoil, crown vetch and luceme were the best adapted legume species. By contrast, conventional clover species performed poorly; red and alsike clovers all died and only a few plants of white and subterranean clovers have survived, all within the more favourable areas of the landscape. Cocksfoot, wheatgrass, smooth brome and tall fescue survived well across the landscape mosaic and showed good vigour and survival. Cocksfoot cultivars and accessions had the best combination of agronomic attributes. In contrast, the survival of all perennial ryegrasses, declined markedly since the 3rd year. These results have important implications for the future development of sustainable pastoral systems in drought-prone landscapes. Keywords dryland pasture species, legumes, grasses</jats:p>

Dryland pasture yields and botanical composition over 5 years under sheep grazing in Canterbury

“…These results suggest Rg/Wc pastures would need to be resown before any of the CF based pastures. This supports previous work which showed poor production and a lack of persistence of RG/Wc pastures in dryland systems (Woodman et al 1992;Knowles et al 2003).…”

“…Dryland pastoral environments in New Zealand are usually subjected to periods of summer/autumn moisture stress. This reduces production, persistence and recovery of traditional perennial ryegrass/white clover pastures (Woodman et al 1992;Knowles et al 2003). In these environments inclusion of lucerne and more drought tolerant grass and legume combinations enhances pasture production (Brown et al 2006).…”

Kura Clover Response to Drought

“…In 2000, droughted Kura clover yields were similar to those for all legumes, while Kura clover, red clover, and birdsfoot trefoil had similar yields when irrigated. These yield results are consistent with generalized comments that Kura clover is tolerant of drought, but low yielding during these periods (13,14).…”

“…In Minnesota, Kura clover forage production typically is greatest in the spring and declines thereafter, likely due to a combination of high temperatures and moisture deficits (7). Kura clover has been generally described as having a high level of drought tolerance, but drought tolerance was associated with reduced herbage yield (13,14).…”

Dinitrogen Fixation in Kura Clover and Birdsfoot Trefoil

“…Kura clover is a rhizomatous forage legume with potential as a long‐lived pasture legume (Taylor and Smith, 1998) It is exceptionally persistent under grazing (Peterson et al, 1994a, 1994b) and harsh environmental conditions (Woodman et al, 1992), and it produces high quality forage (Peterson et al, 1994a) The use of Kura clover has been limited by slow establishment and low seed production, but it appears that these limitations could be lessened by establishment practices that minimize competition with weeds (Seguin et al, 1999), add N fertilizer (P. Seguin, unpublished data, 1999), and use appropriate rhizobial strains (Pryor et al, 1998) Selection for increased seedling vigor might also contribute to improving Kura clover establishment (DeHaan et al, 1997) Delayed and limited nodulation (Hely, 1963; Zorin et al, 1976; Patrick et al, 1994) and poor N 2 fixation in the seeding year (Watson et al, 1996) may also contribute to establishment problems. These limitations apparently do not restrict the growth of Kura clover once it is established, but there is currently no information available on the rates of N 2 fixation in established Kura clover.…”