Temporary grassland – challenges in the future

Intensively managed temporary grassland occurs either as part of a grass-arable rotation system or in grasslands subject to frequent renovation. Even though management of temporary grasslands varies greatly between countries, in terms of establishment, length of grass phase, cut number etc., there are some general changes that we expect will affect the management of intensive grasslands in the future and, to some extent, put pressure on grass utilization. The increasing milk yield per animal greatly affects the requirement for herbage with high content of net energy. The needs for reducing N-losses to the environment will continue the effort to develop grazing systems and total feeding rations that increase N utilization. Larger farms and herds, together with labour saving technology, has changed the utilization of the grasslands and new management needs to be developed to overcome the logistic problems. Using bigger machinery in the field affects the yield and soil compaction, and anticipated future climate change is likely to affect the seasonality of production and forage quality, and introduce additional scope and challenges for planning the optimum use of herbage production from temporary grasslands