Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2009
The yield results are reported for an experiment in which 21 rates of nitrogen fertilizer were applied on pure-sown swards of four grasses, S. 24 and Barvestra perennial ryegrass, S. 37 cocksfoot and S. 53 meadow fescue. Growth curves fitted to the herbage yield data for each grass in each year are presented. On average the total dry-matter yield curves for the two ryegrasses were similar to one another, but showed a slightly smaller response to nitrogen rates below 300 kg/ha than did S. 23 ryegrass in an earlier experiment, and a more rapid decrease in response at higher rates. S. 37 cocksfoot had a similar dry-matter yield response to the ryegrasses at the low nitrogen rates, but the response decreased more rapidly at nitrogen rates over 250 kg/ha. The dry-matter yield response of S. 53 fescue decreased even more rapidly with nitrogen rates over 200 kg/ha. The mean estimates of the optimal nitrogen rate for each of the four grasses, i.e. the nitrogen rate at which the dry-matter response had decreased to 10 kg/kg N, was 380, 372, 357 and 327 kg N/ha for S. 24, Barvestra, S. 37 and S. 53 respectively, compared with 409 kg/ha for S. 23 ryegrass in the earlier experiment.