New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

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Impact of cattle treading on hill land
1. Soil damage patterns and pasture status

G. W. SHEATH
W. T. CARLSON
AgResearch
Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre
Private Bag 3123
Hamilton, New Zealand

Abstract  An experiment was conducted on steep hill land in New Zealand to describe the pattern of cattle treading that occurred from a single damage event during winter. The experiment also measured some of the consequences of treading and sought to define the subsequent grazing management which promoted the most rapid recovery of pasture.

In hill paddocks of mixed topography, damage of the soil surface was greatest on animal tracks/camps and easy contoured areas (<25deg.) where cattle prefer to walk. Evidence of this initial winter impact disappeared over spring, most rapidly on easy contoured areas and under continuous sheep grazing. To promote rapid recovery of damaged paddocks continued grazing of cattle during spring should be avoided.

At high levels of damage (>50% soil surface), puddling on tracks/camps and skid damage on steep inter-tracks became frequent. These processes are significant because animal tracks/camps act as important channels for surface water flow in hill lands; and disturbed, inter-track areas are an important source of sediment runoff.

During spring, pasture growth rates were reduced by treading damage. From a systems context this could represent losses of 5-10 kg DM ha^-1 d^-1 during early-mid spring. Pasture cover and growth rates had fully recovered by early December.

Keywords  treading; cattle; grazing management; sustainability; hill land

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 1998, Vol. 41: 271-278

0028-8233/98/4102-0271 $7.00/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 1998

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (607K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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