How To Get Productivity Back Into Your Grassland

Most grass swards are suffering badly from the combined effects of continual rainfall and the damage caused by the need to feed stock. Fields are looking an unhealthy shade of yellowy green, a firm indicator of severe stress.

This stress has two main sources, disease and soil structure and the effects are to reduce production and persistency and cause the sward to fill up with weed grasses.

Disease, specifically Drechslera leaf spot is caused by the wet conditions combined with varietal susceptibility, as well as reducing the feed value and palatability of the plant Drechslera weakens the plant, reducing persistency and making it more susceptible to winter kill. Grazing the sward will remove the diseased leaves, promoting healthy regrowth.

Soil structure is much more of a problem; the weight of water that has fallen this year when combined with the weight of harvesting equipment and grazing animals has created shallow pans in many grass fields. The effect is to restrict root growth to the top 10cms of the soil structure and also stop slurry and rainfall penetrating the soil, so the roots are growing in a wet sludge, when beneath the compaction the soil is dry. In a normal, healthy soil structure, the grass roots will penetrate over 30cms and the soil structure will be kept open by worms allowing slurry and rainfall to penetrate.

By restricting root growth to the top 10cms, the plants access to nutrients is limited, reducing growth and favouring the growth of shallow rooted species like meadow grass. To help farmers overcome these problems and restore a productive sward, Barenbrug have produced a short video, available via the Barenbrug web site at www.barenbrug.co.uk and from Barenbrug distributors which focuses on;

Identifying the problem
Repairing the damage to the soil structure
Identifying what is productive in the sward
Correcting the problems by over-seeding

To get the best out of their swards in 2013 farmers must correct the problems in their grass fields; otherwise they will end up with lower yields next year and another expensive winter of buying in feed to replace lost production.