A Grass Use Intensity index to be used across regions and grassland managements

• Main Authors: Taugourdeau, Simon, Huguenin-Elie, Olivier, Plantureux, Sylvain, Michel, Nadia, Dumont, Bertrand
• Other Authors: Laboratoire Agronomie et Environnement (LAE), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Université de Lorraine (UL), Agroscope Reckenholz - Tänikon (ART), Agroscope, Unité Mixte de Recherche sur les Herbivores - UMR 1213 (UMRH), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement (VAS)-AgroSup Dijon - Institut National Supérieur des Sciences Agronomiques, de l'Alimentation et de l'Environnement, Aslaug Helgadottir, Thoroddur Sveinsson, Thorunn Reikdal, Áslaug Helgadóttir, Alan Hopkins
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2013
• Subjects: mixed grassland; number of cuts; remote sensing; stocking rate; [SDV.SA.AGRO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Agricultural sciences/Agronomy; Akureyri; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01478331

International audience The widely used concept of intensity of grassland management can be defined according to the fertilization level and defoliation frequency for mown meadows or to the stocking rate for pastures. Many questions arise for comparing situations over a large gradient of pedo-climatic conditions, or grazing, mowing and mixed grass utilizations. We therefore propose an index of intensity of grassland management, combining grazing and mowing, and considering regional differences in biomass productivity. A model predicting the percentage of grass eaten by the animals as a function of the stocking rate was developed based on field measurements. The index can sum this percentage of grass defoliated by grazing to that defoliated by cutting, considering that one cut defoliates 100% of the vegetation. Regional differences in biomass productivity are taken into account by dividing the sum of defoliations by the biomass productivity of grassland at the regional level, which is estimated from remote sensing images. This index could be used to roughly estimate management intensity when field measurements are not available and a large range of situations have to be compared.