Grasslands in tropical environments are characterized by greater diversity than is found in temperate areas. In South Africa, greater diversity is found with the seasonally limited production which occurs on dystrophic soils under humid conditions in the sourveld, as opposed to the year round production that occurs on eutrophic soils under warm and drier conditions in the sweetveld. Most of the...

Conventional methods of weed control are weather dependent, costly and labour intensive. Indiscriminate use of chemicals for controlling weeds may pose environmental problems. Sorghum allelopathy is a new technique, which has been tested for controlling weeds of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) as a substitute for chemical herbicides to reduce environmental pollution. Mature sorghum herbage contain...

OBJECTIVE The present study aimed to assess the nitrogen (N) use efficiency of acidified pig slurry for regrowth yield and its environmental impacts on perennial ryegrass swards. METHODS The pH of digested pig slurry was adjusted to 5.0 or 7.0 by the addition of sulfuric acid and untreated as a control. The pig slurry urea of each treatment was labeled with 15N urea and applied at a rate of 2...

Due to economic, environmental and animal-welfare constraints, it is envisaged that in the future a larger proportion of the milk produced in temperate regions will be produced from grazed pasture. However, with the selection of modern higher-production dairy cows, increased emphasis on product quality and issues associated with nitrogen leaching, soil compaction, greenhouse-gas emissions and a...

BACKGROUND The potential of Origanum syriacum L. to become a cultivated crop in Lebanon rather than being harvested from the wild was investigated at the production, postharvest and economic levels. Three irrigation schemes were tested on growth parameters of cultivated oregano plants. In order to identify the most quality-preserving drying technique, air-, oven (30 °C)- and freeze-dried oregan...

Water and phosphorus (P) are two critical resources for high nature value farming in semi-dry mountains. ey are major drivers of grassland productivity but can negatively a€ect plant diversity. Soil moisture is known to a€ect soil microbial activity and plant P nutrition but the e€ects of irrigation on soil P status, soil microbial P and plant P nutrition in semi-natural grasslands remain larg...

Biogeosciences Discussions This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Biogeosciences (BG). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in BG if available. Abstract Legumes are an important source of nitrogen in stockless organic cereal production. However, substantial amounts of N can be lost from legume-grass leys prior to or after incorporation as green manure (GM). Here...

Analysis of the problems increasing yield clover seeds shows that, in relation to fodder perennial grasses, tasks selection when breeding new varieties are associated with improving vegetative development plants. Fodder use provides for need further increase productivity phytomass, period active shoot formation, predominance stems structure herbage, and others. Such natural or selectively induc...