Anna Mills 
In this video blog, the third in the autumn series taken on 7th May 2015, Dick Lucas discusses the state of the hybrid ryegrass pasture initially established in autumn 2013 at Ashley Dene, Canterbury. Approx. 4 ½ mins) The initial species and sowing rates for the pasture discussed in this post was:10 kg/ha ‘Ultra Enhanced’ … Read more
In this second video blog taken on 7th May 2015, Lincoln University Dryland Pasture Research team member Dick Lucas discusses the status of the cocksfoot/sub clover/balansa clover dryland pasture mix. The pasture was initially established in autumn 2013 at Ashley Dene, Canterbury. The initial species and sowing rates for this pasture mix were:2 kg/ha ‘Greenly’ … Read more
Dick Lucas ventures into our MaxAnnuals experimental area at Ashley Dene in the first of this series of video blogs taken on 7 May. In this video Dick discusses the general state of the cocksfoot or hybrid ryegrass pastures this autumn with a bit of a recap on what he has observed at the site … Read more
Posted on behalf of Professor Derrick Moot and Dr Keith Pollock Yes, it’s been a dry spring and summer. Not unheard of in Canterbury but more extreme than normal. At Ashley Dene, 538 mm of rain has been recorded from 1st March 2014 to 28th of Feb 2014. This is about 88% of the normal … Read more
In this video Prof Derrick Moot discusses how to effectively irrigate your lucerne stand to ensure that the applied water is used for plant growth (approx. 6 min).
Professor Derrick Moot discusses lucerne growth and stocking rates for a dryland lucerne stand as water stress conditions are starting to compromise production. The state of individual paddocks is shown and discussed in relation to grazing management (approx. 6 minutes).
Derrick Moot talks about summer grazing of lucerne (alfalfa) at Lincoln University as drought conditions are developing in this short video (approx. 3 minutes).
Update 27/1/2015: Welcome to the new blog site of the Lincoln University Dryland Pastures Research Team. All our previous posts have now been moved into our new site. Just like our previous blog site the comments option will be open for 2 weeks after any new post is published. Original Post (21/1/2015): Over the next … Read more
With drought conditions developing along the east coast we thought maybe we would throw some numbers out to put a price on how lucerne can transform dryland farming systems. Here, at Lincoln, the 2014/15 rainfall for the Jul-Dec period is about 170 mm – or about half what is expected over the same period in … Read more
Featured Image: Recorded for posterity – Dick Lucas locates a lone white clover plant in an Irish pasture while attending a field day as part of the International Grasslands Congress held in Dublin in 2005. Our resident annual clover guru Dick (Richard) Lucas was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for … Read more