Advances in Plant Sciences

摘要

Within this special issue of NZJA entitled ‘Advances in Plant Sciences’ we present a collectionof papers which bring new science to the discipline of grassland plants. Of the 14 papers contained in this issue, 6 relate specifically to clovers and legumes, 3 to clovers and grasses, 3 tograsses and weeds and 2 to a forages. It is interesting and encouraging to note the dominanceof grassland legume based studies in this issue. Although globally contemporary agriculturehas a strong dependence on fertiliser nitrogen (N) for plant N nutrition, it appears thatlegumes still have a major importance in our grazed grasslands, both in terms of N inputsto the systems via N2 fixation, but also to the high quality feed value of the legumes forgrazing farm animals. Subject matter in this issue covers a broad spectrum in the disciplineof plant sciences. These include field comparisons of clover cultivars, Lucerne or clover/grass mixes, rhizobia, germination requirements, plant metal tolerances, pasture/animaleffects, root investigations, plant breeding, herbicide resistance and plant pests.