Grasses procure key soil nutrients for clovers - raw data
These data are saved in Excel. This is a pot experiment set up at Lincoln University Growth Chamber, the data contains pH value, dry weight, and ICP test results.
The rationale of this paper is Rhizobial nitrogen fixation in legumes provides spillover benefits to neighbouring plants such as pasture grasses. This is generally 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 exploitation of the wider soil nutrient pool. We test this hypothesis using soil cores with their component vegetation assemblages sampled from a hill country pasture in South Island, New Zealand. The soil was deficient in key essential elements: P, S, B, Mo and Ni. Facilitation from grasses to clovers was evident; legume-grass mixtures procured more nutrients from the soil compared to when either species was growing alone. When grasses and clover grow together in unfertilised grassland, more nitrogen is procured by the plant community and other limiting plant nutrients in the soil are better exploited. Co-existence with grasses is favourable to clovers in terms of soil biogeochemistry.