Abstract
Yorkshire fog (Holcus lanatus L. var. 'Massey Basyn') pastures were grazed almost continuously by sheep at high stocking rates for five years. The surviving tiller or paddock population was compared with the original seed population, and with the nine original parents of the variety, by growing the populations as widely-spaced plants and measuring plant size, erectness, leaf size, leaf strength, and heading date. In general, there was a slight genetic shift in the paddock populatmion towards {the mean of the parents and away from the mean of the seed population. Differences in the frequencies of esterase isoenzyme bands between the seed and paddock populations provided further evidence that a genetic shift had occurred. However, the magnitude of the shift was small, particularly by comparison with the range of variation observed wit,hin each population and between the parents. 'Massey Basyn' is therefore considered to possess an acceptable degree of genet,ic stability under continuous grazing.
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