Farmers will benefit from a new method of monitoring pasture nutrients
Thursday, November 15, 2018 - 05:30
in Earth & Climate
A fast new way of checking nutrient levels in grasslands allows farmers to quickly monitor changes in pasture nutrients and adapt their animals' grazing methods accordingly. By cutting the analysis time from around 16 hours to less than a minute, this relatively cheap and easy approach will greatly improve the sustainable management of grasslands—the main form of agriculture in many parts of the world, and a cheap and affordable source of nutrients for ruminant livestock that in turn provide meat and milk for people. Using this new method, researchers publishing in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems show that overgrazing pasture to below 7cm significantly reduces the amount protein and digestibility of the grassland.