Objectives of management

Grazing modifies the proportion of different plant species which occupy the sward. Systems of grazing may be directed to producing particular combinations of plants for specific purposes.

1. (i) One objective assumes that the dominance of the most productive plants leads to higher plant yields. Considerable activity is directed to the eradication or reduction of less productive species. However, the loss of yield associated with the occurrence of less productive plants in the sward may have been overstated, since vigorous plants growing next to less vigorous plants grown even more than if next to other vigorous plants (Smith & Alcock, 1985).

2. (ii) Management may be more legitimately directed to the promotion of plants of high nutritive value, to the control of unpalatable plants, which do not contribute to the feed ingested, or of toxic plants, which damage animal health.

3. (iii) A frequent objective is the control of the balance between grasses and legumes, so that growth, nitrogen accretion and the maintenance of nutritive value may be optimised.

4. (iv) Species composition, especially with respect to the content of sod-forming plants, bears on the resistance of the landscape to soil erosion and on the runoff characteristics of the sward.

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