New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

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The role and future use of perennial native grasses for
temperate pastures in Australia

G. M. LODGE

NSW Agriculture
Agricultural Research Centre
RMB 944
Tamworth, NSW 2340, Australia

Abstract  Increasingly in Australia there is evidence of pasture decline; acidification, salinisation, and land degradation are all indications that pastoral and landform ecosystems are not in equilibrium. With declining terms of trade for farmers, rapidly increasing costs of pasture establishment and maintenance, and an increased environmental awareness in the community, it is timely to consider the future and role of perennial native grasses in temperate pastures. Undoubtedly the sowing of persistent, well-adapted, deep-rooted native or introduced grasses can reduce the rate of acidification or salinisation. Native grasses evolved under conditions of a mostly dry and fluctuating climate, low nitrogen and phosphorus soils, low grazing pressure by soft-footed marsupial herbivores, low trampling pressure, high summer fire frequency, and low densities of legumes such as Swainsona, Lotus, and Glycine. While introduced temperate perennial grasses often require a companion legume and fertiliser input for productivity and persistence, the adaptive characteristics of some native grasses may be useful, particularly in marginal environments where sown perennial grasses have poor persistence. In many districts, all native grasses were thought to have similar adaptive characters and so a philosophy evolved among many agriculturalists to replace indigenous plants with fertilised legume-based pastures. This assumed that the level of land capability could be permanently increased by adding introduced species to the pasture ecosystem, but there is increasing evidence that this may not be so. Where useful native grasses predominate, they have a continuing role as a major pasture resource on most properties. Some farmers on the Tablelands of New South Wales have developed stable and productive native grass-based pastures, carrying 8-15 dry sheep equivalents/ha, by manipulating grazing pressure, fertiliser use, and legume growth. In winter rainfall and cropping zones, such as the Riverina of New South Wales and the Mallee districts of Victoria, where native pastures occupy less than 25% of the agricultural land, native grasses are under test, because it is thought they are more likely than introduced species to have a restorative role in acidified, salinised, or degraded cropping lands. The availability of seed of the better native grasses by domestication and seed harvesting is seen as an adjunct to these roles, and not as providing replacements for other persistent, productive perennial grasses.

Keywords  native pasture; natural pasture; native grasses; domestication; land restoration

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 1994, Vol. 37: 419-426

0028-8233/94/3703-0419 $2.50/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 1994

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (668K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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