Pasture and Hayland Planting Practices.

Pastures establishment is fundamental to the introduction of new species and cultivars for grazing or hay. Although the primary objective is the productive return, such pastures and forages have conservation value, such as protecting soil from erosion, retention of nutrients that might otherwise enter the water, and provision of  shelter and sustenance for wildlife, while supporting food production, ensuring farm income and contributing to the quality of rural life. The objective of this review is to describe research that supports the effectiveness of the practices described in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Practice Standard - Code 512 Pasture and Hay Planting. This review is intended as a resource for NRCS and Soil and Water Conservation staff, as well as farmers and land managers.  Establishment options ranged from inexpensive but high-risk methods such as natural reseeding to high-cost lower-risk methods such as full cultivation. Successful establishment must integrate decisions on sowing date, sowing rate, soil cultivation, vegetation control, seed treatment, and post-sowing management. Inputs can include lime, fertilizer, irrigation and agrichemicals for weed and pest control. One consistent pattern in the literature was the lack of increased forage yield from establishment of new species or cultivars within existing stands. Most benefits to production occurred when plant establishment was a component of ‘improvement’ that included fertilization and more intensive forage utilization. We considered a broad ‘ecosystem services’ approach and reviewed many of the reported anthropocentric benefits resulting from plant establishment. The most widely reported effect was on species richness, in which planting pattern and management of competition during germination and establishment affected long-term floral, and consequently faunal, species diversity. The literature was noticeably deficient in the number of studies on the impact of establishment practices on factors such as soil, water and air quality.