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Pasture productivity in New Zealand 1990–2020: trends, expectations, and key factors

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posted on 2025-01-14, 02:20 authored by David Chapman, Alec MackayAlec Mackay, John CaradusJohn Caradus, David A. Clark, Stephen GoldsonStephen Goldson

Pasture productivity gains are critical for maintaining global competitiveness of New Zealand’s $38 billion p.a. animal product export industries. This review reveals that gains in pasture eaten on dairy farms declined sharply after ∼ 2001/02, from +1.48% yr−1 to +0.26% yr−1 despite continued increases in nitrogen (N) fertiliser use, stocking rate, irrigation, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and products from plant breeding programmes. Thus, gains in pasture productivity (outputs relative to inputs) have also declined. Almost all of the increase in dairy pasture eaten since 1990 can be explained by increases in N fertiliser and stocking rate. Many farms may have reached the peak pasture yields possible within the climatic environment of the late twentieth century. Meanwhile, climate change in northern regions is placing downward pressure on pasture growth and persistence. Climate change also emerges as a key cause of declining production on sheep/beef farms in some regions, while elsewhere predicted increases in growth under climate warming and elevated CO2 have not materialised. There is a major strategic knowledge gap regarding the state and resilience of the national pasture resource which potentially constrains the optimal allocation of scarce research resources to the key issues affecting future financial and environmental sustainability.

Funding

New Zealand Grassland Trust

History

Rights statement

© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Publication date

2024-11-24

Project number

  • Non revenue

Language

  • English

Does this contain Māori information or data?

  • No

Publisher

Taylor & Francis Group

Journal title

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research

ISSN

0028-8233

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