The article describes a long-term research work (2011–2021) on the formation of pastures created on the basis of traditional and sparsely distributed perennial grasses, carried out in the experimental field of the Northwestern Dairy Farming and Grassland Management Research Institute – separate subdivision of VolRC RAS. Research in the period from 2011 to 2015 served as the basis for the development of resource-saving technology for the formation of agrophytocenoses of pastoral use based on legume species in the conditions of the European North of Russia. As part of pasture herbage, we study cereal grasses (timothy “Vologdskaya mestnaya”, meadow fescue “Sverdlovskaya”) and legumes (eastern galega “Krivich”, birds-foot trefoil “Solnyshko”, red clover “Carmine”, and white clover “Belogorsky”). According to productive indicators for 4 years, we have highlighted a grass mixture consisting of fescue, timothy, red clover, and eastern galega. The yield of dry matter is 3.6 t/ha, the harvest amounted to 2.9 thousand fodder units per hectare, digestible protein – 0.4 t. From 2017 to 2021, we conducted studies on the influence of species and varieties of perennial grasses on the formation of pastoral agrophytocenoses for the development of resource-saving technology for their creation. The basis of the pastoral agrophytocenosis consisted of various grass mixtures from the following crops and varieties: festulolium “Allegro”, ryegrass pasture “VIC 66”, timothy “Leningradskaya 204”, fescue meadow “Sverdlovsk 37”, awnless brome “SIBNIISKHOZ 189”, smooth meadow-grass “Limagi” and “Dar”, red clover “Dymkovsky”, white clover “Meadow”. For 4 years of the research on cereal herbage using fertilizers, productivity was 5.7–6.7 tons of dry weight, the content of feed units was 4.9–5.7 thousand, and digestible protein was 0.7–0.8 tons. Legume-cereal herbage, including meadow and creeping clover, provided a dry mass yield of 7.8–8.0 tons, collection of feed units was 7.4–7.6 thousand and digestible protein 1.2 t/ha
Keywords
productivity, nutritional value, Perennial grasses, pastures, adaptive fodder production