Sociability of four clover species with cocksfoot during pasture establishment

Abstract

The establishment phase of six pastures was studied over a seven-month period. Four clover species plus cocksfoot were compared with white clover/ryegrass and lucerne pastures. All six pastures were sown into a cultivated fertile Templeton silt loam seedbed on February 18. Treatments were replicated 4 times, in randomised blocks, with the 0.05 ha plot individually fenced for grazing by sheep. Seedling establishment on March 6 from field counts found grass populations ranged between 380 to 230 plants m⁻² and 370 to 120 plants m⁻² for legumes, by June 19 this decreased to between 140 and 290 plant m⁻² for the grasses and between 60 and 170 plants m⁻² for the legumes. On April 17 seedling legume leaf numbers were 41.1, 30.2, 26.2, 14.5, 9.9 and 5.7 leaves plant⁻¹ for sub clover, lucerne, balansa clover, white clover (cocksfoot), white clover (ryegrass) and Caucasian clover respectively. On June 25, destructive samples found ryegrass had 13.6 and cocksfoot 7.0 tillers plant⁻¹. Cocksfoot grown with sub clover had 1.3 tillers plant⁻¹ less. Total seedling weights saw sub clover with 0.630 g plant⁻¹ , compared to 0.480, 0.350, 0.160, 0.120, 0.070 g plant⁻¹ for lucerne, balansa, Caucasian, white (cocksfoot), white (ryegrass) clovers respectively, on April 17. By September 12, dry matter botanical compositions showed that balansa clover/cocksfoot pastures had 60% and sub clover/cocksfoot, white clover/cocksfoot, white clover/ryegrass and Caucasian clover/cocksfoot pastures had 32%, 18%, 13% and 5% legume respectively. By September 8, ryegrass pastures had produced 4050, compared to 3790, 3480, 3470, 2880, 1520 kg DM ha⁻¹ for balansa clover/cocksfoot, white clover/cocksfoot, sub clover/cocksfoot, Caucasian clover/cocksfoot and lucerne pastures respectively. These results showed that annual clovers contributed more legume than perennial clovers through the cool season after a February establishment, and that ryegrass suppressed white clover growth and development more than cocksfoot. Lucerne seedlings were as productive as sub and balansa clovers in autumn but were dormant through the winter. Caucasian clover produced few leaves before winter and was suppressed by cocksfoot after the early autumn sowing.