New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts
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)
This year's abstracts |
Journal home page |
All abstracts |
Publishing home page
