Monitoring Productivity of A UK Dairy System Aiming to Increase Soil Carbon, based on Diverse Swards and Incorporating Mob Grazing

Summary in the original language of the document

There is interest in increasing soil organic matter (SOM), both to improve plant productivity, and augment carbon sequestration. One practice that may contribute to increasing SOM is a “mob grazing” approach. This involves high stocking density for a short period of time, and often grazing more mature swards, leaving higher cover and longer recovery times between grazings than is typical in the UK. This approach is likely to be best suited to swards that include a wide variety of grass and herb species, giving greater resilience than a purely ryegrass sward. The performance of dairy herds on such swards under this type of management in the UK has not been documented. This paper describes how a participatory approach is used to gather sward and animal production data from a farm where diverse swards and a “mob grazing” system have been developed over seven years, with the aim of increasing the return of organic matter to the soil.