- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
For me, it's a tricky one - as others have suggested, diversity of root structure seems to be what "the soil notices"..Changing the subject as usual, but what would you grow with grass, to avoid a monoculture?
We do include clover, but going on my earlier post on hard ground when ploughing up ley this is part of problem.
Normally establish grass at same time as barley undersowing it. It will get poached by cattle, no sheep.
However, it does depend on your context, as to your approach to embracing complexity/biodiversity.
When it gets wet, most of the shallow rooting but productive (invasive?) grasses seem to take over, and in the dry the opposite seems to be true - and on huge scale, it's often more productive by far, to just "let it happen" or "build it, and they'll come" as the suitable species will probably be there, simply change management to allow for them.
A farming context does vary, as it is usually built around human input, and the financials are usually accomodating this (ie crop rotations, harvesting things, reseeding depleted pastures or replacing them).
I'd possibly look at plants such as chicory/plantain as really bringing a lot to the party - they can tap into a lot of resources that grasses cannot, and also using a dash of other clover species with different attributes - annual clovers, persian, arrowleaf, red - as they will all provide wonderful succession throughout the growing season, and largely take over if the summer gets too hot for your grasses.
They'll also reduce the need for mulching/topping to maintain quality during summer, which means your grasses then get a chance to reproduce, which then means your grasses last, instead of needing to be reseeded (even one year in 3 will be more than enough to allow for plant succession).
In the current, and likely the future, reducing the need to do stuff that ideally doesn't need to be done, will be as good as money in the bank - I'd actually be quite worried about my future if my system needed expenditure year on year to achieve what nature can do for free - because you know there will be people out there with lower costs.
Back to your question, and I'm really not too sure about your climate details - but I'm using cocksfoot, brome, plantain for cool season growth, none of which seem to be as touchy as a ryegrass/WC mix.
Radish and oats are a bit of a given in a reseed, just for that fast groundcover/canopy/begin to feed the soil/protect the grass from the wind benefit, but they won't persist.
I also like a bit of timothy, it puts an extra few weeks on the growing season at either end and animals love it, even when it has its 'pipecleaner' going on.
So there are lots of things that you can add to your seed mix, really. I like to make every seed mix a little different, and do try to let them "go to hay" if I can, that way you can get the leverage from your spend - you might put down 35kg/ha, left alone your crop of grass may put down 500kgs!
And yes, I am a part-time seed salesperson, also a realist - there is much more to agriculture than output!