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Grass VESS : a modification of the visual evaluation of soil structure method for grasslands
Author(s) -
EmmetBooth J. P.,
Bondi G.,
Fenton O.,
Forristal P. D.,
Jeuken E.,
Creamer R. E.,
Holden N. M.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
soil use and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.709
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1475-2743
pISSN - 0266-0032
DOI - 10.1111/sum.12396
Subject(s) - environmental science , soil science , grassland , arable land , hydrology (agriculture) , dns root zone , porosity , soil water , agronomy , geotechnical engineering , geology , geography , archaeology , biology , agriculture
Visual evaluation of soil structure ( VESS ) is used for assessing arable management impact on soil quality. When used on pastures, operators have identified limitations because VESS does not consider a surface root‐mat typical of managed grassland. The structure of the root‐mat may be indicative of nutrient use efficiency, pollution potential and subsurface compaction. The objectives of this research were to develop Grass VESS for grassland soil management, to compare it with VESS and quantitative physical indicators and to assess its utility for soil management. Grass VESS maintained the methodological strengths of VESS , but uses a flow chart, grassland images and a new root‐mat score. A focus group found Grass VESS to be quicker, dealt better with technical information and made root‐mat evaluation easier. The range of structural quality scores assigned by the focus group for a site was less for Grass VESS than VESS , suggesting the procedure is more reproducible, thus suitable for use by a range of stakeholders. Grass VESS was also deployed at 30 grassland sites across Ireland. Results indicated that Grass VESS generated the same overall diagnoses as VESS , but the Grass VESS root‐mat structural quality score was better related to bulk density, total porosity at 5–10 cm and a visual estimation of damaged sward area. It was concluded that Grass VESS has improved the VESS method for the specific assessment of grassland soil structural quality and could be used in real‐time farm management decision support.