Growing grass and clover separately allows animals to sustain a high nutrient intake.

摘要

White clover has high nutritive value but the proportion in mixed pasture and therefore the diet, is often low. Offering sheep ryegrass and clover growing side-by-side for short periods increases the proportion of clover in the diet and daily intakecompared to a mixed pasture. This experiment tested whether sheep offered ryegrass and clover side-by-side could sustain a high proportion of clover in their diet and a high daily intake, compared with sheep grazing ryegrass alone, clover alone and ryegrass and white clover growing as a mixed sward. Forty-eight dry, non-pregnant Romney ewes (56±1.8 kg liveweight) were randomly allocated to four replicates (two spatial x two temporal) of each treatment (n=3) for 12 days. Average grazing time was 292±16.2 min/day and did not differ significantly among treatments. Short-term intake rate on clover (5.0 g/min) was higher than ryegrass (3.5 g/min) (P=0.02). As a result, clover dominant diets supported higher daily intake (1.36 kg/d for clover alone vs. 1.08kg/d for ryegrass alone). Sheep sustained a diet of 70% clover and 30% ryegrass, showing that predominance of clover in the diet was not a result of novelty. This improved daily intake would provide significant benefit to animal production systems and can be achieved simply by growing grass and clover separately.