What are diverse pastures (and how do I use them)?

The intention of this ‘What are diverse pastures?’ collection is to describe diverse pastures and their potential benefits as well as to provide you with things to think about when adopting or tweaking the use of them.

A diverse pasture is generally considered to be a pasture with at least 5 species, including multiple grasses, clovers and at least one herb. High diversity pastures in New Zealand may contain 30+ species across the five plant families, with most farmers sowing 10+ perennial species.

Generally, the purpose of diverse pastures is to have a mix of species that balance and optimise total pasture production, timing of growth, animal performance, animal health, soil health, drought/flood resilience, input cost and ecological/environmental goals.

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Specific benefits of using diverse pastures

Compared to low diversity pastures, the use of more diverse pastures provide:

• improved animal health as a result of more nutritious pastures and healthier soils

• equal or higher production, and with fewer inputs

• more even pasture growth curves with more consistent quality as different species thrive in different seasons and conditions

• opportunity to graze at higher covers

• higher feed quality when deferred

• more consistent feed quality which means more opportunities to harvest supplement, e.g. opportunity to cut and carry more frequently

• better pasture persistence - management is key to diverse pastures improving with age

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