ELIGIBILITY: This project is for a student taking the MSc in Statistics and Sustainability.
In agriculture, grasslands can play an important role in producing feed for animals and maintaining soil health in crop rotations. In recent years, mixing plant species with complementary traits have been proposed to reduce the quantity of synthetic fertiliser required to maintain an agricultural grassland, without causing a loss in production. There are many negative environmental impacts of applying synthetic fertiliser, thus reducing its application improves the sustainability of the system.
In addition to species diversity, cultivar diversity may play an additional role. An agricultural grassland field experiment was carried out where plant diversity and cultivar diversity were manipulated across plots. This project will investigate the effects of species and cultivar diversity on yield production. This project will also investigate optimal designs of experiments for future experiments aimed at testing species and cultivar diversity.