Prospects for smart soil management techniques in grazing systems - techniques and implications of spatial management of grassland soils

摘要

Precision management of nutrient input to grazing systems offers the opportunity to optimise pasture production whilst minimising environmental impacts.Grazed grasslands are associated with highly heterogeneous soil properties that develop as a consequence of uneven distribution of dung and urine deposition, differences in underlying topography, and variations in soils and microclimates. This heterogeneity leads to variability in plant growth, nutrient usage efficiency, and nutrient (particularly nitrogen) losses. Despite this, it is conventional to manage fields uniformly when adding nutrients or lime leading to inefficient nutrient use. Development of spatially variable inputs to grasslands requires an understanding of the spatial distribution of underlying soil properties, and the way in which they influence soil and plant nutrient cycling. This paper provides an overview of the variations in soilfertility that contributes to uneven nutrient use efficiency, and using the example of variations in soil pH, assesses the extent to which spatially variable applications of ' lime could be predicted to influence pasture production, and greenhouse gas emissions.