Thomas M R Maxwell

Lincoln University

Persistence is an important component of perennial pasture-grass productivity. Defining traits that affect persistence is essential for improving pasture longevity through plant breeding and for identifying persistence traits that should be included in cultivar ranking indices. Compared with conventional longitudinal studies, where a single sowing...

To date, the idea of using livestock animals as biological tools to manage weeds, sequester carbon, and boost food security in oil palm plantations has not been seriously considered by industry stakeholders of major producing countries (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia, and Nigeria). We revisit the integration of oil palm cultivation w...

Farm systems resilience in New Zealand pasture-based farming is influenced by external drivers such as environmental regulation, and internal drivers such as existence, expressed as profitability. We examine ten published case studies of farm systems change to provide insight into management interventions to these drivers and their impacts on pastu...

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of grazing a diverse pasture of plantain, Italian ryegrass, and red clover versus a ryegrass-white clover pasture on the liveweight gain (LWG) and urinary nitrogen (N) excretion of ram lambs over an 82-day experimental period in autumn. Eighty Coopworth ram lambs (8 months old) were allocate...

With a view to increasing rangeland pasture legume abundance, the herbage biomass and seedling recruitment of four New Zealand naturalized annual clover species (haresfoot clover Trifolium arvense L., suckling clover T. dubium Sibth, cluster clover T. glomeratum L., and striated clover T. striatum L.) were measured in relation to spring grazing def...

Genotype-phenotype associations between the bovine genome and grazing behaviours measured over time and across contexts have been reported in the past decade, with these suggesting the potential for genetic control over grazing personalities in beef cattle. From the large array of metrics used to describe grazing personality behaviours (GP-behaviou...

This study investigated liveweight gain of lambs grazing five-year-old pasture of either Italian ryegrass, red clover and plantain (Diversified) or perennial ryegrass and white clover (Standard). Coopworth lambs were born to either diversified or standard pasture and reared there until weaning in December (early summer). Liveweight gain (LWG) from...

The creation of more sustainable land use strategies is paramount to designing multifunctional agricultural landscapes that allow grasslands to continually deliver multiple ecosystem services. A mapping modelling approach would provide us with a tool for system diagnosis to better assess the value of a landscape and define place-based practices for...

Grazing management to reduce soil erosion is paramount for preserving and enhancing grassland health under pastoral livestock production systems. However, as the focus of these production systems is to increase productivity, the inclusion of the soil and its complexity in grazing management has been usually neglected. Detailed consideration of the...

The reliance of conventional oil palm production on agrochemicals to control understory vegetation has caused devastating impacts on the environment. Overuse of chemical herbicides leads to the decline of native biodiversity and production-related ecosystem services, including biological pest control. In contrast to herbicide applications, livestoc...

Globally, extensive pastoral grazing systems are facing multiple pressures, including to address emerging public concerns about environmental impact and animal well-being. This may require new regulatory constraints to be met, while maintaining the economic viability of the systems. One novel approach to addressing these challenges is to capitalize...

Background Experimental work using pot trials and mesocosm studies has indicated that species combinations are more effective than single species mitigating the soil nutrient constraints that limit pasture productivity in New Zealand’s hill country, but there is little field evidence to support this.AimWe question whether coexistence of species pro...

During the onset of lactation, dairy cows experience increases in metabolic demands causing an increase in metabolic and oxidative stress that may result in disorders and reduced milk production. Dairy cows also represent a source of negative environmental impacts. Accordingly, natural products which alleviate these stresses and sources of environm...

The objective of this experiment was to determine if providing ewes in the final trimester of pregnancy with choice from diverse diet components would reduce markers of oxidative and metabolic stress in ewes and improve lamb birth weights relative to ewes offered only one forage species, repetitively. Fifty-four, twin bearing Coopworth ewes [initia...

Fertiliser has been a vital part of agriculture due to it boosting crop productivity and preventing starvation throughout the world. Despite this huge contribution, the application of nitrogen (N) fertilisers results in N leaching and the formation of greenhouse gases, which threaten the environment and human health. To minimise the impacts, slow/c...

Rhizobial nitrogen fixation in legumes provides spillover benefits to neighbouring plants such as pasture grasses. Generally, it is understood to be unidirectional between plant functional groups, providing a benefit from legumes to grasses. We question whether bidirectional complementarity also exists in terms of exploiting the wider soil nutrient...

Background Experimental work using pot trials and mesocosm studies has indicated that species combinations are more effective in mitigating the soil nutrient constraints that limit pasture productivity in New Zealand’s hill country, but there is little field evidence to support this. Aim We question whether coexistence of species provides an opport...

Background: The grazing behaviour of herbivores and their grazing personalities might in part be determined genetically, but there are few studies in beef cattle illustrating this. In this study, we investigated for first time the genetic variation within a candidate 'grazing gene', the glutamate metabotropic receptor 5 gene (GRM5), and tested ass...

Background Combinations of grasses and nitrogen-fixing legumes are ubiquitous in most natural and derived pastoral grasslands. This was not formerly the case in New Zealand’s unique indigenous grasslands that are now frequently impacted by exotic pasture grasses and legumes. Understanding the co-existence of native and exotic plants is the broad fo...

The aim of this study was to investigate the compatibility of plants with contrasting root systems, in terms of procurement of limiting soil nutrients. Paired combinations of species of proteas and grasses were grown in a pot experiment using soil from a site with impoverished vegetation and degraded soil. The soil contained sufficient N but was lo...

The effect of repetitive allocation of a fresh forage diet or varying the availability of diet components on the dry matter intake (DMI) and rumen characteristics of sheep is not fully understood. To determine if repeated feed allocation affected DMI and rumen characteristics, 21 Coopworth rams were allocated to one of three treatments: repetition...

Background Combination of grasses and nitrogen-fixing legumes are ubiquitous in most natural and derived pastoral grasslands. This was not formerly the case in New Zealand’s unique indigenous grasslands that are now frequently impacted by exotic pasture grasses and legumes. Understanding the co-existence of native and exotic plants is the broad foc...

Targeted goat grazing is a promising tool to control competing weeds in crop plantation systems without causing adverse effects on the environment. Here, we investigated the effectiveness of targeted grazing for weed control involving 11 Katjang crossbreed goats in a mature oil palm plantation. We assessed the animal behaviour and management aspect...

Intensive pastoral systems have moved away from diverse and varied diets towards overly simple monotonous diets. Feed choice through time is an obsolete way of providing forage to animals, as intensive management schemes generally allocate a single herbage or a dyad mixed sward. Monotonous feeding regimes impose nutritional repetition, which may im...

Grasslands are complex and heterogeneous ecosystems, and their health can be defined by the cumulative ability of their components to evolve, adapt, and maintain their integrity in the presence of stress/disturbance and provide ecosystem services. Herein, a design approach is used to generate alternative and multifunctional pastoral livestock produ...

The objective of this experiment was to determine if supplementation with Lactobacillus fermented plant extracts will affect the livestock performance (BW change and reproduction) and antioxidant status of ewe lambs managed to lamb as yearlings (EWES). A further objective of this experiment was to determine how providing the Lactobacillus fermented...

The objectives were to determine the effect of in utero and early-life dietary exposure to a diverse diet or a perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) diet on grazing behavior and dietary neophobia of lambs ~3.5 months post-weaning (weaned at 6 weeks of age). Sixty-four Coopworth lambs (152.5 ± 1.4 d of age; mean ± SEM,) were used. Sixteen lambs had...

The European Commission (EC) is critical of palm oil production as it has a high indirect land-use change (ILUC) risk from industrial palm oil expansion pressuring landless/displaced farmers to clear tropical forests. Major palm oil-producing countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia are claiming that the EC’s decision will cause unwarranted obstacl...

Objective The objective of these experiments was to determine how altering the proportion of ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) to chicory (Cichorium intybus L.), alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), or plantain (Plantago lanceolata L.) or a mixture (equal parts DM of chicory, alfalfa, and plantain) affects the in vitro fermentation rates and formation of ferme...

The objective of this experiment was to determine how early life exposure to plant extracts would influence grazing behavior and dietary preference. This experiment used ram lambs (n = 60; initial body weight = 41.8 ± 3.8 kg, mean ± standard deviation). Their dams were either provided no plant extract (CON), a seaweed (Ecklonia radiata) extract (10...

Energy supplementation may reduce oxidative stress by correcting a negative energy balance, but in some contexts it has been shown to increase oxidative stress, especially at peak lactation. The current experiment examined if a pelleted energy supplement with or without the addition of Lactobacillus fermented seaweed or seaweed plus terrestrial pla...

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of offering animals a multi-forage choice of fresh herbages on dry matter intake (DMI), live weight gain and animal welfare, in comparison with a monotonous diet of ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.). Twenty ram lambs [30.5 ± 0.9 kg initial live weight; mean ± standard error of the mean], were rando...

Chicory (Cichorium intybus L.) used in pastoral systems has the attributes required of a forage species to reduce animal urinary nitrogen loading to soil, increase milk production, and enhance milk fatty acid profile to improve pastoral farm systems for matching increasing global demand for dairy products and environmental standards of livestock sy...

While grazing lands can offer a diverse range of forages, individuals within herds prefer to graze some habitats and not others. They can have consistent differences in grazing patterns and occupy specific spatial domains, whilst developing tactics and strategies for foraging that are specific to their grazing personalities. In this review, we expl...

Good pasture management requires an accurate knowledge of whole-farm feedbase, yet most systems for measuring pasture growth are manually operated and time consuming. A newly developed pasture-measuring device enables remote measurement of pasture height on a regular basis. This study investigated the accuracy of such a device compared with a risin...

The first step in improving nitrogen fertiliser application efficiency in pastoral farming is to develop a model to estimate pasture nitrogen content. This study relies on the principle that the higher the N content in pasture grass, the higher will be the light energy absorptionfor photosynthesis. The model will support the application of N depend...

Greenhouse gases emissions are considered one of the most important environmental issues of dairy farming systems. Nitrous oxide (N2O) has particular importance owing to its global warming potential and stratospheric ozone depletion. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of two rotational grazing strategies characterized by t...

The study investigated the effect of stage of lactation and Breeding Worth (BW) index on estimated dry matter intake (DMI), milk solids (MS) production, energy use efficiency (EUE) and feed conversion efficiency (FCE) of grazing cows. Two hundred crossbred cows with similar calving date (14 August ± 9.97 days), live weight (471.5 ± 44.02) and age (...

Oil palm expansion has caused considerable biodiversity loss as rainforest has been converted to plantation. However, it is still possible to mitigate such biodiversity losses and increase agricultural sustainability by introducing sustainable oil palm farming practices. One such method is the use of biological control agents for understory weed ma...

Ensiled king grass (Cenchrus purpureus (Schumach.) Morrone) is commonly used as feed in tropical ruminant production. However, ruminant performance can be limited by low nitrogen (N) content in tropical grass silage. A mixed feed of legume–king grass silage may be an option to improve ruminant production. We investigated the effects of feeding an e...

A long-term pasture persistence trial, consisting of repeated annual sowings, commenced in Canterbury in 2015 and is planned to continue until 2024. Preliminary results of the first 3 years sowings are reported. Each annual sowing used the same randomised block design of eight perennial ryegrass cultivars, one tall fescue and one cocksfoot cultivar...

Breeding cows for improved production and production efficiency may have led to indirect selection for behavioural traits including grazing and urination behavioural patterns. This study investigated the relationship between genetic merit (breeding worth; BW) and grazing and urination behaviour in Holstein-Friesian × Jersey lactating dairy cows. Tw...

Differential equations and advanced statistical models have been used to predict growth phenomena. In the present study, general nonlinear growth functions such as von Bertalanffy, Gompertz, logistic, and Brody, along with hierarchical modeling were applied to investigate the phenotypic growth pattern of Iranian Lori-Bakhtiari sheep. Growth data fr...

Pasture mitigation strategies are needed to reduce the negative effects of nitrate (NO3⁻) leaching from intensive pastoral livestock production systems. We explored the capability of pasture grasses with different cool season (winter–early spring) growth rates to reduce NO3⁻ leaching and increase N uptake. Following a single urine application of 70...

The use of agrochemicals is expected to increase with the global expansion of oil palm plantations. In line with environmentally sustainable palm oil certification, targeted grazing can minimize the dependency on herbicides for controlling weeds in plantations. Here, we show for the first time that targeted grazing would control weeds and improve b...

This study explored the possibility of estimating nitrogen content in a pasture grass using thermal images and artificial neural networks (ANN), based on the premise that plant herbage with a higher N content would be absorbing more light energy for active photosynthesis, therefore emitting excess energy as heat. This is the first reported study to...

Selective grazing of white clover (Trifolium repens) over grass species in temperate pastures results in reduced clover abundance and availability over time. Within sheep- and cattle-grazed dryland (<800 mm annual rainfall) hill and high country areas of New Zealand, naturalized unsown annual clover species show greater persistence and abundance ov...

Naturalised annual clover (NAC) species (suckling clover, cluster clover, striated clover, and haresfoot clover) are commonly present to locally abundant in summer dry hill and high country areas where white and subterranean (sub) clover abundance is limited. This field trial investigated NAC species dry matter production and seedling regeneration...

Naturalised annual clover (NAC) species (suckling clover, cluster clover, striated clover, and haresfoot clover) are commonly present to locally abundant in summer dry hill and high country areas where white and subterranean (sub) clover abundance is limited. This field trial investigated NAC species dry matter production and seedling regeneration...

Maintaining and increasing legume abundance is a critical component of pastoral intensification, increasing nitrogen inputs to nitrogen deficient New Zealand high and hill country pastures and improving feed quality. Establishment and persistence of traditionally sown legume species white clover (Trifolium repens) and subterranean clover (T. subter...

Adventive annual clovers play a critical role in nitrogen (N) cycling and feed quality in extensive summer-dry hill country, where traditionally sown white and subterranean clovers often fail to persist. However, very little is known about the edaphic (e.g. soil fertility) requirements of these species. The growth response and nutrient uptake of fo...

The abundance of four naturalised annual clovers (striated, cluster, suckling, haresfoot) and two sown clovers (subterranean and white clover) was investigated in relation to topographical, soil fertility and management factors on two contrasting hill/high country stations in the South Island: Glenfalloch in inland Canterbury (1 665 mm annual rainf...

The effect of crop sequence, pasture species mixture and nitrogen fertiliser on gorse establishment was monitored over 23 months in land converted from pine forest to a dryland sheep pasture. There were fewer gorse plants in plots sown initially into the forage crop triticale and then into grasslegume pasture than plots sown directly into grass or...