Biodiversity for multifunctional grasslands: equal productivity in high-diversity low-input and low-diversity high-input systems, Weigelt 2009

This English grasslands study, comparing alternative strategies for increasing productivity, showed that “increasing plant species richness levels were more effective than the imposed levels of increasing management intensity” [Weigelt 2009: 1701]. The management intensification strategy included synthetic fertilization and mowing, while the biodiversity strategy increased species richness from 1 to 16 species. The authors conclude that:

For permanent grasslands, which cover one third of the utilised agricultural area in Europe (Smit et al., 2008), highly diverse communities composed of complementary species and N2-fixing legumes could provide an excellent agro-economic and ecological option for sustainable and highly productive grassland use [Weigelt 2009: 1704].