Woodward & Caradus--Performance of white clover lines under rotational grazing

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

Performance of white clover cultivars and breeding lines in rotationally grazed Waikato dairy pasture, New Zealand

S. L. WOODWARD

Dairying Research Corporation
Private Bag 3123
Hamilton, New Zealand

J. R. CARADUS

AgResearch Grasslands
Private Bag 11008
Palmerston North, New Zealand

Abstract The performance of 30 white clover breeding lines, including some already released cultivars, was measured over four years (1 June 1993 to 31 May 1997) in mixed pasture under rotational grazing by dairy cows, in the Waikato region of New Zealand. All the white clovers persisted throughout the trial but parameters measured (visual scoring of vigour, clover yield, and clover %) showed that the performance of most lines and cultivars fell in the final season due mainly to cooler than normal growing conditions in late winter-summer and a dry spring-summer. `Grasslands Pitau' was, overall, the top white clover cultivar but showed a significant drop in performance during the dry 1996/97 year. Six other lines, including a newly released cultivar, `Kopu II', were in the group of top performing white clovers characterised by high visual scores, clover yields, and clover % in the 1996/97 year. `Grasslands Kopu', the control cultivar, performed poorly, ranking 25th overall. Results indicated that clover persistence is still a problem in dairy pastures, particularly if the climate is dry. Overall, the trial showed that persistence and drought tolerance should be a major focus of future white clover breeding programmes aimed at developing cultivars more suitable for dairy farming in New Zealand.

Keywords white clover; Trifolium repens; dairy farming; rotational grazing; cultivar; breeding line; performance; persistence

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2000, Vol 43: 323-333

0028-8233/00/4303-0323 $7.00/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 2000

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