Use of long-season annual legumes and herbaceous perennials in pastures to manage deep drainage in acidic sandy soils in Western Australia

Abstract

The effect of including phases of long-growing-season annuals and herbaceous perennial pastures on water use was examined at 2 sites (deep sand and duplex soil) in Western Australia. Herbaceous perennials used were lucerne (Medicago sativa), and a mix of C3 grasses comprising phalaris (Phalaris aquatica), tall wheat grass (Thinopryum ponticum), and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) (perennial grass treatment). The long-season annual treatment was a mix of yellow and pink serradella (Ornithopus sp.) and Casbah biserrula (Biserrula pelecinus). These treatments were compared with annual-based pasture that was a mixture of subterranean clover with capeweed and Brassica species, and annual crops. Pasture treatments were first sown in 1998. High senescence of C3 grasses over the 1998–99 summer and poor germination of serradella/Casbah biserrula in the autumn of 1999 necessitated the re-seeding of the long-season annual and the perennial grass treatment in 1999. Wheat was sown in 1998, lupin in 1999, and barley in 2000 in an annual crop treatment. Soil water content to 1.5 m was measured hourly using frequency domain reflectometer probes, and a neutron probe was used monthly to measure changes in soil water to 5 m. Herbage production and species composition were determined. In each year of the study, annual pasture species senesced by November. About 20 lucerne plants/m2 persisted through the first summer–autumn in deep loamy sand and 40 lucerne plants/m2 in a duplex soil. Perennial C3 grass species did not survive the summer–autumn in sufficient density and distribution to evaluate their effect on soil water. Annual dry matter (DM) production in lucerne-based and subterranean clover-based pasture was not significantly different. Dry matter production in lucerne between 1 December and the following May–June, when germination of annual-based pastures occurred, was 1.2–1.9 t/ha at one site and 0.2–1.6 t/ha at another site. Long-season annual pastures produced significantly more DM than either lucerne or subterranean clover-based pastures in one season at one site but produced significantly less DM than either lucerne or subterranean clover-based pasture at another site in another season. Long-season annual-based pastures extracted amounts of soil water to a depth of 5 m similar to subterranean clover-based pasture when these were grown on deep sand and a duplex soil. In contrast, lucerne removed an additional 128 mm of water to 5 m, with 70 mm of this water being drawn from 2.5–5 m, compared with subterranean clover-based pasture. Lucerne was comparatively less effective in extracting water from a duplex soil where rooting depth was restricted to 2 m by a saline watertable. Early germination of annual pastures appeared to reduce drainage compared with a crop treatment where weeds were killed in autumn and early winter ahead of seeding. The need for studies at landscape scales that include concurrent measurements of groundwater levels and changes in soil water content to a depth of at least 5–6 m under perennial-based production systems is highlighted.