Summary

Grasslands include meadows, pastures, changing and temporary lands. It is a very important and significant form of land use all over the world as meadows and pastures occupy around 3200 million hectares of the Earth, i.e. 2/3 of agricultural lands. In EU 27 countries grasslands occupy 69 million hectares which constitutes about 36% of agricultural lands. In Poland, grasslands amount to 20% of agricultural lands (3271 thousand ha), and it must be stated that it is not a big area in comparison to other EU countries. Permanent grasslands are generally located in specific habitat conditions, on areas with big slopes, on soils with a high level of groundwater in river valleys or local depressions. Moreover, organic soils are preferred for permanent grasslands. Water requirements of permanent grasslands are high. Atmospheric precipitations, and especially their occurrence during vegetation, decide about the size of biomass yield. For a yield of 7 t/ha d.m. plants need about 540 mm of water in the vegetation period. Sowing of seeds is performed with a seeder at the depth from 0.5 to 1.5 cm. On grasslands often various mixtures of grass and legumes are sown. Among the numerous varieties of grass 15 have practical use, whereas among legumes 6 varieties are mainly used. When selecting varieties for composing mixtures one should take into account the following factors: use method (hay-growing, pasture, changing), permanence of use, reliability of yielding, type of soil, humidity and competitiveness of particular varieties. Hay yields from grasslands reach 5-8 t/ha on the average, whereas hay-silage reaches around 10-15 t/ha. The production cost of hay depends on the production technology, and it ranges from 30 to over 100 €/t, while it is about 25-55 €/t in the case of hay-silage.

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