Grass-clover in organic dairy farming - options to reduce costs and improve nutrient utilization (OrgGrass)

On organic dairy farms, grass-clover leys are essential for animal welfare, feed supply and soil fertility building.  The proportion of grass-clover in the crop rotations increases on Danish organic dairy farms and, in combination with a general increase in farm sizes, this leads to high grassland frequencies near the farms. The main reason is that uniform grazing of all cropped land becomes inexpedient due to long distance to the milking facilities. This development has got implications for a number of aspects: accumulation and loss of nutrients, loss of productivity and quality in grass-clover mixtures of longer duration, and increasing problems of establishing white clover. However, the longer duration of grasslands may also provide an opportunity to control nutrient losses due to less frequent grassland cultivation.

Contact person

Senior Scientist Jørgen Eriksen
University og Aarhus
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
Agroecology and Environment
Blichers Allé 20, P.O. Box 50
DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark

Tel.: +45 89 99 12 33; Fax: +45 89 99 12 00
Email: Joergen.Eriksen@agrsci.dk