HOW TO SCORE

Walk the field and assess grass content.

 

An Index 1 field will have less than 25% sown, productive species left in the field and the ryegrass that remains will be of very poor quality.

 

The gaps created by the disappearing ryegrass have been filled up with broad-leaved weeds and weed grasses like annual meadowgrass, yorkshire fog, bent grasses, chewings fescue and strong creeping red fescue.

 

All these weed grasses are totally unproductive to the field, delivering less than 25% of what perennial ryegrass will produce.

 

An index 1 field will deteroriate quicker than other fields as it is not wear tolerant, so will not be able to resist poaching by grazing animals.

 

WHAT THIS MEANS

A field with a classification of Index 1 is not nutritious, has no feed value and is therefore of no use to ruminant livestock.

 

WHAT TO DO

The field has gone past that stage of being profitable.

 

It isn’t worth putting any fertiliser on the grass that is left as it will not be used efficiently (you'll get around 10-15% efficiency from the fertiliser that is applied).

 

In this situation, with less than 25% of productivity from the field, the best course of action is to plough it up the field and start again with a re-seed.