Here we describe the livestock performance and baseline productivity over a two-year period, following the establishment of the infrastructure on the North Wyke Farm Platform across its three farmlets (small farms). Lowland permanent pastures were continuously stocked with yearling beef cattle and ewes and their twin lambs for two years in three farmlets. The cattle came into the farmlets as suckler-reared weaned calves at 195 ± 32.6 days old weighing 309 ± 45.0 kg, were housed indoors for 170 days then turned out to graze weighing 391 ± 54.2 kg for 177 days. Therefore, it is suggested for predominantly grass-based systems with minimal supplementary feeding that target live weight gains should be 0.5 kg/day in the first winter, 0.9 kg/day for summer grazing and 0.8 kg/day for cattle housed and finished on silage in a second winter. The sheep performance suggested that lambs weaned at 100 days and weighing 35 kg should finish at 200 days weighing 44 to 45 kg live weight with a killing out percentage of 44%. Good levels of livestock production are possible with grass and forage-based systems using little or no additional supplementary concentrate feeds.

The objective was to assess the impact of replacing a permanent pasture with a reseeded pasture on system productivity and product quality in the first year of establishment under commercial conditions management.Dairy cows were allocated to treatment based on pasture availability at the start of the season following standard commercial practices.Seventy autumn-calved cows grazed a high sugar grass pasture (14.1 ha reseeded in September 2015) and 55 grazed a permanent pasture (12.1 ha) from April to June 2016.Pastures snip samples were taken to assess nutritional composition every two weeks.Milk production and composition was measured on 4 th May and 10 th June.A slightly higher content of water soluble carbohydrate was observed in May on the reseeded sward (27.1 vs. 25.8%)coinciding with a higher milk yield (24.6 vs. 22.9 L d -1 per cow), lactose content (4.41 vs. 4.34%), and a lower somatic cell account (59,400 vs. 113,300 cell mL -1 ), compared to the permanent pasture.Pasture varied in nutritional value across the study.In June, no differences in milk production or composition were observed.However, the reseeded sward was estimated to produce 12.3% more milk per ha than the permanent pasture during the experimental period (113.8 vs. 101.3L ha -1 d -1 ), driven by the greater carrying capacity of the sward (5 vs. 4.5 LU ha -1 ).This farm case study shows the potential of a reseeded pasture to outperform permanent pasture even in the first year of establishment at a farm system scale.

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For livestock production systems to play a positive role in global food security, the balance between their benefits and disbenefits to society must be appropriately managed. Based on the evidence provided by field-scale randomised controlled trials around the world, this debate has traditionally centred on the concept of economic-environmental trade-offs, of which existence is theoretically assured when resource allocation is perfect on the farm. Recent research conducted on commercial farms indicates, however, that the economic-environmental nexus is not nearly as straightforward in the real world, with environmental performances of enterprises often positively correlated with their economic profitability. Using high-resolution primary data from the North Wyke Farm Platform, an intensively instrumented farm-scale ruminant research facility located in southwest United Kingdom, this paper proposes a novel, information-driven approach to carry out comprehensive assessments of economic-environmental trade-offs inherent within pasture-based cattle and sheep production systems. The results of a data-mining exercise suggest that a potentially systematic interaction exists between soil health', ecological surroundings and livestock grazing, whereby a higher level of soil organic carbon (SOC) stock is associated with a better animal performance and less nutrient losses into watercourses, and a higher stocking density with greater botanical diversity and elevated SOC. We contend that a combination of farming system-wide trials and environmental instrumentation provides an ideal setting for enrolling scientifically sound and biologically informative metrics for agricultural sustainability, through which agricultural producers could obtain guidance to manage soils, water, pasture and livestock in an economically and environmentally acceptable manner. Priority areas for future farm-scale research to ensure long-term sustainability are also discussed.

With increasing concern about environmental burdens originating from livestock production, the importance of farming system evaluation has never been greater. In order to form a basis for trade-off analysis of pasture-based cattle production systems, liveweight data from 90 Charolais × Hereford-Friesian calves were collected at a high temporal resolution at the North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) in Devon, UK. These data were then applied to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) modelling framework to estimate on-farm methane emissions under three different pasture management strategies, completing a foreground dataset required to calculate emissions intensity of individual beef cattle.

ABSTRACT This study examined the hysteresis exhibited in concentration–discharge (C–Q) relationships in the runoff from four hydrologically separated fields (catchments) at an intensively managed grassland. The objectives were to examine C–Q relationships constructed from high-resolution time series of flow, temperature, pH, conductivity, nitrate and turbidity, and their implications for hydrological processes. High-resolution datasets from the quality assured records of the Rothamsted Research North Wyke Farm Platform in the UK were examined using a graphical method and cross-correlation statistics. The study found that storm events based C–Q hysteresis reflects the cross-correlation that is generally hidden in time series analysis of large datasets, and that although Q and water quality variables can be effectively influenced by catchment size, the C–Q relationship is less significantly influenced. The dominant C–Q relationships of the water variables in the study area reflect that saturated overland flow was prevalent during the study period in the catchments, while the CCF results indicate coupled transfer of sediments and solute in the area at lag ≥ 0. EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis ASSOCIATE EDITOR M. D. Fidelibus

Summary The N orth W yke F arm P latform was established as a U nited K ingdom national capability for collaborative research, training and knowledge exchange in agro‐environmental sciences. Its remit is to research agricultural productivity and ecosystem responses to different management practices for beef and sheep production in lowland grasslands. A system based on permanent pasture was implemented on three 21‐ha farmlets to obtain baseline data on hydrology, nutrient cycling and productivity for 2 years. Since then two farmlets have been modified by either (i) planned reseeding with grasses that have been bred for enhanced sugar content or deep‐rooting traits or (ii) sowing grass and legume mixtures to reduce nitrogen fertilizer inputs. The quantities of nutrients that enter, cycle within and leave the farmlets were evaluated with data recorded from sensor technologies coupled with more traditional field study methods. We demonstrate the potential of the farm platform approach with a case study in which we investigate the effects of the weather, field topography and farm management activity on surface runoff and associated pollutant or nutrient loss from soil. We have the opportunity to do a full nutrient cycling analysis, taking account of nutrient transformations in soil, and flows to water and losses to air. The NWFP monitoring system is unique in both scale and scope for a managed land‐based capability that brings together several technologies that allow the effect of temperate grassland farming systems on soil moisture levels, runoff and associated water quality dynamics to be studied in detail. Highlights Can meat production systems be developed that are productive yet minimize losses to the environment? The data are from an intensively instrumented capability, which is globally unique and topical. We use sensing technologies and surveys to show the effect of pasture renewal on nutrient losses. Platforms provide evidence of the effect of meteorology, topography and farm activity on nutrient loss.

The UK’s North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) for sustainable grassland farming is set up as a large agriculture modelling system of 15 hydrologically-isolated catchments, where in each catchment, water chemistry, precipitation and soil moisture data are continuously monitored. This spatio-temporal data are then interrogated with respect to climatic timings and changes in crop, livestock and farm management, across the NWFP. Complementary data sets are also found via spatial field surveys, remote sensing and greenhouse gas studies. This study focuses on one such field survey, consisting of soils data at 495 sites. We spatially explore this data using a geographically weighted principal components analysis, where we provide a novel adaptation of the technique to deal with the distinctly partitioned nature of the data, which is collected across 20 fields, spread over the 15 catchments.

(1) Rothamsted Research, Devon, United Kingdom (laura.cardenas@rothamsted.ac.uk), (2) School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK, (3) School of GeoSciences University of Edinburgh, and Totnes, Devon, TQ9 5BE , (4) Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), King’s Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK, (5) Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Newforge Lane, Belfast, BT9 5PX, UK, (6) ADAS Boxworth, Battlegate Road, Boxworth, Cambridge, CB23 4NN, UK

Across N.W. Europe intensive agricultural management has increased productivity to the detriment of floral resources vital for insect pollinators like bees, butterflies and hoverflies. While the creation of wildflower habitats has been widely used to re-establish such resources into arable ecosystems (e.g. sown into field margins), comparable low cost methods for enhancing floristic diversity in production grasslands are lacking. We investigated how simple and cheep seed mixtures based around three plant functional groups (grasses, legumes and non-leguminous forbs) could be used to enhance flowering resources to benefit insect pollinator communities over a four year period. We demonstrate that the abundance and species richness of pollinators was correlated with the increased availability of legume and non-legume forb flowers. While the flowering resources provided by agricultural cultivars of legumes declined rapidly once sown, the inclusion of a forb component within seed mixtures was effective in increasing the long-term persistence of these resources. As a result the abundance and species richness of insect pollinators over the four years showed greater stability where forbs were also sown. Sward management also played a role in the persistence of floral resources, with grazing more likely to maintain legume cover than cutting. In conclusion, we demonstrate that low cost seed mixtures can be used to enhance floristic diversity to benefit pollinators, although the continued value of these grasslands over time is dependent on complementarity between sown legumes and forbs. As permanent grassland covers c. 40% of the UK the enhancement of their floristic diversity has a huge potential to benefit insect pollinators. The type of land sharing approaches suggested here maintain modest agricultural productivity and so may be the most likely to achieve benefit to pollinators through wide-scale farmer uptake. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The relative importance of breed versus rearing experience on the grazing behaviour and diet selection of beef cattle when grazing unimproved grassland was examined over 4 years. Suckler-reared calves of a traditional (T) breed (North Devon) or a commercial (C) breed (Simmental x Hereford Friesian) were cross-fostered and then reared either extensively (E) on unimproved grassland or intensively (I) on agriculturally improved fertilized grassland. As yearlings, the four groups of calves (Traditional breed + Extensive rearing (TE); Traditional breed + Intensive rearing (TI); Commercial breed + Extensive rearing (CE) and Commercial breed + Intensive rearing (CI)) grazed unimproved grassland dominated by Molinia caerulea, for 2 months, and foraging behaviour was studied in a test phase. There was a breed effect on total (bites + chews; TJM) jaw movement rate (T, 78.2 vs. C, 76.5 min(-1); F prob.=0.041) during grazing and on the proportion of bites taken from plant communities with sward height >= 6cm (T, 0.83 vs. C, 0.76; F prob.=0.018). Rearing experience affected TJM rate in the first year in July (E, 80.0 vs. I, 76.8min(-1); F prob.=0.015) and August (E, 78.5 vs. I, 75.5min(-1); F prob.=0.046). The intensively reared animals grew less well on average during the test phase than those that had previous experience of the unimproved grassland as calves with their mothers (E, 0.16 vs. I, 0.09kg day(-1); F prob.=0.033). Our findings indicate that the rearing experience of livestock appears to be as important as the breed when designing grazing managements for nature conservation areas.

Over three years, a replicated block design was used to investigate the effects of seed mixtures (grasses only; grasses and legumes; grasses, legumes and non-legume forbs), establishment techniques and long term management on beetle and spider communities of grassland swards. We quantified trophic links between phytophagous beetles and their host plants to assess the effect of these seed mixtures and management practices on food web structure. When managed under low intensity cutting regimes the most diverse seed mixture supported the highest biomass of beetles and spiders (c. 3.6 kg ha(-1)). Species richness of predatory beetles, phytophagous beetles and spiders were all increased by the sowing of legumes, although the addition of other forbs tended to result in at most modest further increases in invertebrate species richness. Analysis of food web structure suggests that the number of host plants utilised by beetles was greatest within the most diverse seed mixtures, but that this declined rapidly after the establishment year. We demonstrate that by sowing cheap and simple seed mixtures agriculturally improved grasslands can be managed to support increased diversity of spiders and beetles. While seed mixtures do not necessarily need to be of the highest diversity to achieve these benefits, the inclusion of legumes does appear to be crucial. The lower costs of intermediate diversity seed mixtures increase appeal to farmers, increasing the likely uptake of these methodologies in voluntary agri-environment schemes. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Intensive grassland management has produced floristically species poor swards supporting a limited invertebrate fauna. Low cost seed mixtures can be used to increase floristic diversity and so diversify the food resource of phytophagous invertebrate. We quantify trophic links between plants and phytophagous beetles in grasslands established using three seed mixtures. Using food webs, we model secondary extinctions from the beetle communities caused by the loss of host‐plants. Plant species were eliminated according to three scenarios: (1) drought intolerant first; (2) low nutrient status first; (3) stress tolerant first. Diverse seed mixtures containing grasses, legumes, and nonlegume forbs, were more robust to secondary beetle extinctions. The highest diversity seed mixture increased robustness under scenarios of extreme drought in three out of four tested management regimes. Simple and low cost seed mixtures have the potential to promote landscape scale robustness to future environmental change for native invertebrates.

There is increased global interest in the environmental impacts of farming, including the need to prevent the contamination of soil, water and air with excessive amounts of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in grazed systems. Reduction in grazing intensity has frequently been recommended to meet biodiversity and production goals in sustainable grazing systems. The objective of this experiment was to measure N and P ingestion and excretion by beef cattle grazing semi-natural pastures at two grazing intensities (Moderate or Lenient). The cattle grazing at Moderate grazing intensity had significantly more defaecations each day than those grazing at Lenient intensity (9.5 vs. 7.5) and tended to have more urinations (7.0 vs. 5.8). For the Moderate and Lenient treatments, respectively, 113 vs. 76 g N d(-1) was excreted compared with 136 vs. 94 g N d(-1) ingested; 12 vs. 8 g P d(-1) was excreted compared with 13 vs. 10 g P d(-1) ingested and urine N comprised 0.51 and 0.52 of the total N excreted each day. In improved, intensively managed grassland systems, urine N comprises a much higher proportion (approximately 0.700.85) of the daily total N excreted. The lower level found here is likely to impact on potential volatilization, denitrification and leaching losses, and these aspects should be examined further to see the extent to which semi-improved grasslands containing increased plant diversity compared with improved grasslands can deliver higher resource protection, as well as enhanced grassland faunal diversity and abundance.

Grazing semi-natural grasslands may enhance their wildlife faunal diversity and abundance by modifying the plant species composition through exploiting the dietary choices of the domestic livestock, yet diet preferences in these grasslands are often poorly understood. We therefore investigated diet selection of beef cattle in semi-natural pastures, grazed at moderate stocking (MS) or lenient stocking (LS), using the global positioning system (GPS) to track their foraging paths. This was combined with use of an automatic system to record foraging behaviour in free-ranging ruminants and measurements of vegetation structure (pasture height and plant functional groups) at a given location. The diet selected by each animal at each grazing location was then determined from a vegetation map surveyed using GPS along with a geographical information system (GIS). Patches containing clover comprised only 17.5% and 3.1% cover in the MS and LS swards, respectively. Clover was also mostly distributed in the sward as singular patches, rather than as larger aggregated clumps and it appeared that these species were not as strongly selected as has been reported for less heterogeneous pastures where they are more prevalent. This study demonstrated that GPS tracking of livestock foraging paths could be combined with vegetation mapping and automatic grazing behaviour measurements to investigate diet preference in complex, heterogeneous swards.

There is increasing global interest in the extent to which multi-species grasslands containing increased plant diversity compared with improved grasslands can also deliver higher resource protection. The objective of this experiment was to examine nutrient returns via faeces and urine by free-ranging cattle grazing semi-natural grassland which contribute to leaching losses to ground water along with volatilisation and denitrification losses to the atmosphere. Reduction of grazing intensity has frequently been recommended to meet biodiversity and production goals in sustainable grazing systems. In this experiment beef cattle were continuously stocked on semi-natural ( Lolium perenne – Cynosurus cristatus ) grassland at grazing intensities which were designed to either utilise herbage growth for optimum livestock production (Moderate), or to increase biodiversity by not fully utilising herbage growth (Lenient) in three replicate blocks. Observations were made in May and September of the number and timing of individual defaecation and urination events between dawn and dusk. In addition, the quantities of fresh material excreted in individual defaecation or urination events were collected and measured. For cattle grazing the Moderate and Lenient treatments, respectively, the daily number of defaecation events was 10.0 vs. 9.3 ( F prob. = 0.448) in May; 10.0 vs. 9.8 ( F prob. = 0.821) in September. The estimated daily total of fresh faeces excreted animal −1 was 10.8 vs. 9.5 kg ( F prob. = 0.503) in May; 15.3 vs. 17.4 kg ( F prob. = 0.480) in September. The daily number of urinations was 13.4 vs. 13.5 ( F prob. = 0.941) in May; 9.4 vs. 12.7 ( F prob. = 0.077) in September. The estimated daily total amount of urine produced animal −1 was 9.9 vs. 10.4 kg ( F prob. = 0.808) in May; 7.2 vs. 11.9 kg in September ( F prob. = −1 were 77 vs. 75 g N day −1 ( F prob. = 0.903) in May; 96 vs. 122 g N day −1 ( F prob. = 0.369) and urine N as a proportion of the total N excreted was 0.51 vs. 0.58 in May ( F prob. = 0.215); 0.53 vs. 0.59 in September ( F prob. = 0.464). Most of the P excreted (proportionately 0.99) was excreted in the faeces for both grazing intensities in May and September. The daily numbers of excretion events animal −1 were similar to other published values but a lower proportion of the total daily N output was excreted as urine compared with published values for cattle grazing fertilised, improved intensive swards. The potential impact of this on losses to soil water and the atmosphere should be examined.