Rotational Grazing and Nitrogen

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 9, 4 December 1931, Page 3

Rotational Grazing and Nitrogen

Two agricultural problems of farreaching importance are at present engaging the attention of research workers at the Rowett Research Institute of Aberdeen. One has to do with the rotational grazing and manuring with nitrogenous manures, and the other with the grazing of dairy cattle. Both are of outstanding importance to stock breeders. Discussing these experiments, the “Scottish Farmer” points out that the rotational grazing and manuring experiment has been in progress for three years, so that the conclusions reached may be taken as fairly definite. In the first years the application of the nitrogenous manures resulted in a flush of grass; which increased the grazingcapacity by 30 percent over the unmanured control. After the second year the improvement had fallen to 11 percent, while after the third year the grazing capacity had actually decreased 20 percent, compared with the unmanured control, and was infinitely inferior to a field which had been grazed in the normal fashion over the three years. It is stated by the Scottish journal that nitrogen apparently stimulates the coarser grasses at the expense of the finer ones, and in the end deteriorates a pasture. The pasture, like the grazing animals, requires the proper balancing of all the necessary elements. The experiment with the grazing of dairy cattle has shown that systematic grazing influences a greater milk-yield than the time-honoured promiscuous grazing.