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Volcano plot of the mass feature profiles (separated by reverse phase chromatography) of whole ryegrass urine and whole plantain urine collected in the autumn animal performance trial. The x-axis specifies the fold-change in concentration and the y-axis specifies the negative logarithm (base 10) of the t-test p-values. Compound related mass features unique to, or present in much greater concentrations, in the plantain urine than in the ryegrass urine are indicated on the positive side of x-axis. Compound mass features designated in light grey are those that are either unique to, or present in greater concentrations, in the plantain urine than in the ryegrass urine (p ≤ 0.005, log2 fold ≥ 2)
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Urine from sheep fed with different plantain cultivars (Plantago lanceolata L.) was characterised to determine if metabolites in the urine contributed to soil biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) activity. Chromatographic analyses, combined with mass spectrometry, revealed there were more than 800 mass features that were unique to, or present...
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... Both of these species of the genus Sanguisorba prefer extensive management (Hamacher et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2012). In general, all of the chosen plant species contain more or less relevant amounts of PSM (e.g., Berard et al., 2011;Kapp-Bitter et al., 2021;Peterson et al., 2022;Verma et al., 2021) and several have the ability to grow under drier conditions (Table 1). All species potentially support biodiversity through provision of flowering resources (e.g., Cong et al., 2020). ...
One pillar of sustainable agriculture is grassland resilient and resistant to climate perturbation and capable of attaining multiple services. Novel or exotic and, so far, minor or underutilised plant species may become increasingly important against this background and exploration of such plant species seems of importance to maintain grassland functioning. We chose a set of 21 dicotyledonous plant species from seven botanical families. The set included 10 legumes, of which four were, so far, not used in temperate climate grassland and are named exotic henceforward. The other species are named minor as they are mostly not in widespread use. We evaluated different plant functions including herbage accumulation, herbage quality and functional traits in a pilot study under semi‐controlled conditions under increased temperatures compared to ambient conditions. The factor species had a significant influence (p < .001, F‐test) on all target variables, including the leaf dry matter content, the herbage biomass and the protein contents. All studied species had a high concentration of organic matter in the dry‐matter, had low concentrations of neutral detergent fibre and reached relatively large protein concentrations. In addition, fibre‐bound protein concentration was low resulting in pre‐caecal digestible protein concentrations that meet the nutritional requirements of horses. In contrast, protein concentrations were often too low for intensive livestock feeding. Since no fertiliser N was applied, non‐legumes accumulated on average 29% less herbage than legumes. The exotic legumes accumulated the highest herbage biomass on average while the minor legumes produced on average 22% less. Of the exotic legumes, Bituminaria bituminosa and Hedysarum coronarium were within the upper quartile for herbage accumulation. Plant functional traits of several species were in similar ranges showing potential for mixture design to follow traits rather than species. The study may pave the way for informed breeding of distinct plant species on the basis of relevant traits in order to improve herbage provision in the future under ongoing climate changes.
... fied compounds that delay soil nitrification(Judson et al., 2018a(Judson et al., , 2018bJudson et al., 2019;Peterson et al., 2022). Inhibiting nitrification in the soil retains N in the less-leachable ammonium form and extends the window for plant N uptake, giving soil microbes more time to accumulate their favoured N source and reducing the amount of potentially leachable nitrate and/or emitted nitrous oxide.Soil microcosms treated with urine from sheep grazing pure swards of PL showed reduced nitrate production for up to a month compared with those treated with urine from sheep grazing ryegrass, and delayed nitrate production in the first 10-12 days of the incubation compared with a treatment with no urine added(Figure 2;Peterson et al., 2022). ...
... fied compounds that delay soil nitrification(Judson et al., 2018a(Judson et al., , 2018bJudson et al., 2019;Peterson et al., 2022). Inhibiting nitrification in the soil retains N in the less-leachable ammonium form and extends the window for plant N uptake, giving soil microbes more time to accumulate their favoured N source and reducing the amount of potentially leachable nitrate and/or emitted nitrous oxide.Soil microcosms treated with urine from sheep grazing pure swards of PL showed reduced nitrate production for up to a month compared with those treated with urine from sheep grazing ryegrass, and delayed nitrate production in the first 10-12 days of the incubation compared with a treatment with no urine added(Figure 2;Peterson et al., 2022). The degree of inhibition appears to be related to sufficient concentrations of the necessary compounds being excreted in the urine and so is dependent on a number of factors:(1) length of time grazing the forage, (2) the percentage of PL in the diet, and (3) the cultivar of PL consumed.While PL has been shown to induce diuresis in sheep after only a 24 h grazing period(O'Connell et al., 2016), the inhibitory effect in microcosms treated with urine collected from sheep after 48 h of grazing on pure PL stands was not obvious, and only became apparent after at least 7 days of grazing PL(Peterson et al., 2022;Podolyan et al., 2020). ...
... Inhibiting nitrification in the soil retains N in the less-leachable ammonium form and extends the window for plant N uptake, giving soil microbes more time to accumulate their favoured N source and reducing the amount of potentially leachable nitrate and/or emitted nitrous oxide.Soil microcosms treated with urine from sheep grazing pure swards of PL showed reduced nitrate production for up to a month compared with those treated with urine from sheep grazing ryegrass, and delayed nitrate production in the first 10-12 days of the incubation compared with a treatment with no urine added(Figure 2;Peterson et al., 2022). The degree of inhibition appears to be related to sufficient concentrations of the necessary compounds being excreted in the urine and so is dependent on a number of factors:(1) length of time grazing the forage, (2) the percentage of PL in the diet, and (3) the cultivar of PL consumed.While PL has been shown to induce diuresis in sheep after only a 24 h grazing period(O'Connell et al., 2016), the inhibitory effect in microcosms treated with urine collected from sheep after 48 h of grazing on pure PL stands was not obvious, and only became apparent after at least 7 days of grazing PL(Peterson et al., 2022;Podolyan et al., 2020). Increasing the proportion of PL in the diet of sheep participating in a controlled feeding experiment from 25% to 50% resulted in not only a 30% decrease in total urine N, but a 20% decrease in nitrate produced in soil microcosms after 21 days(Peterson et al., 2023a). ...
Urine patches from grazing ruminants contain high concentrations of nitrogen (N) and are the main source of N leaching from grazed pastoral farming systems. While there have been various options identified to substantially reduce N leaching, in general these practices increase the cost of production or reduce production per hectare. In New Zealand, multi‐species pastures were evaluated as a cheaper option that would potentially retain productivity. Early research showed these pastures had lower urinary N excretion from grazing animals and increased plant N uptake, compared with standard New Zealand perennial ryegrass/white clover (PR‐WC) pastures. Further research highlighted the beneficial attributes of the pasture herb narrow‐leaved plantain ( Plantago lanceolata ; PL), specifically: reduced urine N concentration, reduced urine N excretion, and reduced rate of soil nitrification. Significant reductions (14%–89%) in N leaching were found from cow urine applied to lysimeters with pastures including PL, compared with PR‐WC pasture. Paddock‐scale measurements confirmed the effects of PL, with 20%–60% lower N leaching when PL comprised 30%–40% of the dry matter (DM) of PL‐PR‐WC grazed pastures. There were no negative effects on milk production and composition when feeding PL to dairy cows, but small positive effects on fatty acid profiles. However, weed and pest management, palatability and persistence remain challenging in pastures containing PL on commercial farms. Management options need to be clarified to ensure successful establishment and maintenance of PL. Additionally, the cultivar differences in secondary compounds and their impact on nitrification rate and N leaching need to be better understood.
... This would require the focus of research to broaden from species that persist and attain a sufficiently high dominance to produce desired outcomes to include those that are ephemeral but have important legacy effects [35,36] and lower abundance species that can nevertheless play important roles in ecosystems [53,54]. This approach would also require consideration of idiosyncratic species effects (e.g., biological nitrification inhibition by Plantago lanceolata [55,56]), and traits beyond those associated with the leaf economic spectrum (e.g., phenolics, which influence soil and grazing animal partnerships, new skills, and a broad exploration, it is difficult and expensive to implement in the longer term. It is therefore typically used intermittently, with the new conceptual solutions it generates explored in more depth using techniques based on rule-based design principles (e.g., modelling, controlled experiments) (B). ...
Increasing plant diversity is often suggested as a way of overcoming some of the challenges faced by managers of intensive pasture systems, but it is unclear how to design the most suitable plant mixtures. Using innovative design theory, we identify two conceptual shifts that foster potentially beneficial design approaches. Firstly, reframing the goal of mixture design to supporting ecological integrity, rather than delivering lists of desired outcomes, leads to flexible design approaches that support context-specific solutions that should operate within identifiable ecological limits. Secondly, embracing, rather than minimising uncertainty in performance leads to adaptive approaches that could enhance current and future benefits of diversifying pasture. These two fundamental shifts could therefore accelerate the successful redesign of intensive pastures.
