Continuous grazing in comparison to cutting management on an organic meadow in the eastern Alps

Summary

Continuous grazing is an appropriate pasture system for dairy cows in low input milk production systems like organic farming. Grazing increases for economic reasons and is also caused by regulations in organic farming. If a dairy farm converts a pasture-based system,cows will start grazing on a cutting-managed meadow. Due to the utilisation changing from cutting to grazing, a conversion of the botanical composition and the quantity and quality yield is expected. To document and assess such conversions, a three-year field trial was carried out on the organic grassland and dairy farm of the AREC Raumberg-Gumpenstein between 2007 and 2009. In this study, changes in the botanical composition were found. In contrast to botanical composition, no significant differences between below-ground biomass and quality yield (CP and NEL) could be detected, although the harvest sward yields of the grazing sward were significantly less than in the cutting variant in the trial years 2007 and 2008.