VASILEVA, V., E. VASILEV and R. TZONEV, 2016. Subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.) as a promising forage species in Bulgaria. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 22: 222–227 The paper presents an overview of the possibility to use the subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.) (an annual leguminous self-seeding species, widespread component in the pastures of the temperate areas of Central an...

The spatial heterogeneity of grasslands determines the abundance and quality of food resources for grazing animals. As plants mature, they increase in mass, which allows greater instantaneous intake rates, but the cell wall concentrations increase too, reducing diet quality. In ruminants, daily intake rates are often constrained by the time needed for the ingesta to pass through the rumen, whic...

To maximize herbage DMI, pregrazing sward surface height (SSH) and level of herbage depletion (HD) must be such that variables determining short-term herbage intake such as bite mass (BM) and bite rate (BR) are optimized. The objective of this study was to determine a SSH target and the level of HD as a proportion of the SSH that optimizes BM and BR of beef heifers grazing Sorghum bicolor sward...

In Appalachian grasslands, soil acidity and highly variable topography are the main factors negatively affecting the productivity. There was a need to develop a yield response function and determine nutritive value of grasslands. Soil factors such as water potential (WP), soil pH, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) levels are highly variable across mountainous grasslands. A greenhouse study was co...

Estimation of clover content of mixed swards is difficult in practise. We are currently in the processof developing several on-farm methods for clover content estimation. 1. Photos with various clovercontents are published in the Internet. 2. Yield samples with known area from several points of thefield are separated for clovers and grasses and weighted. 3. The clover content of...