Whether grasslands are mown or grazed, fertilised or unfertilised – all this affects the ecosystem services of Swiss grasslands. These services benefit both the agricultural sector and society, e.g. in the form of livestock feed or erosion protection.
In vegetable row crops, spot spraying can save on insecticides and fungicides. Agroscope investigated the extent of this savings potential and compared the cost of spot spraying to broadcast treatments with a field sprayer.
The advantages of grass-clover mixtures in ley farming are manifold. An Agroscope study now shows that their highly efficient use of available nitrogen also keeps the risk of nitrate leaching low.