Successful pasture establishment is vital to ensure the persistence of annual pastures. Grazing a pasture too early after seedling emergence can dramatically affect pasture establishment due to:
 
1. Uprooting of small seedlings resulting in reduced plant density
2. Removal of leaf area (defoliation) resulting in reduced growth of seedlings
3. Decreasing the grazing pressure, applying fertiliser (particularly nitrogen), or sowing pasture seed can improve plant density and effective pasture establishment.

Grazing pressure during establishment can be reduced by either Supplementary Feeding or by Deferred Grazing.

Tips:

The amount of bare ground will give a good guide to the amount of FOO. Height of the germinated plants will also add to the amount of FOO. Most plants have high moisture content at this early age and therefore will have relatively low FOO.

These photos are at a resolution for on screen viewing. To download a hard copy of these pictures please click on the image.

Clover dominant pasture:	Grass dominant pasture:	Stubble/1st year  pasture:
100 FOO	100 FOO	100 FOO
300 FOO	300 FOO	200 FOO
500 FOO	500 FOO	400 FOO
1000 FOO	1000 FOO	600 FOO

Mixed composition - FOO (kgDM/ha)	Pasture photos - FOO (kgDM/ha)
200 FOO
300 FOO	500 FOO
500 FOO	800 FOO
1000 FOO

Back to Annual Pastures page                                                       Back to Top