Fjölrit RALA - 15.08.1980, Page 15

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This is the fifth and last progress report on the utilization and
conservation of grassland resources in Iceland, because 1979 was the
last year of the project. As before the experiments were mostly financed
by the Icelandic Government's land reclamation programme pertaining to the
1100 anniversary of human settlement in Iceland.
The year was very cold, and the vegetation growth poor. This delayed,
in most cases, the onset of the experiments, compared with previous years.
This also affected the results, mostly because of limited vegetation when
the experiments started, but also because of poor vegetation growth during
the summer and very cool autumn, especially up in the mountains and in the
north part of the country.
The experimental locations were the same as before and the design was
also similar. In Alftaver different fertilizers were put on the two repli-
cates and no lambs were put on kale in the autumn. On Eyvindardalur sheep
were put on 3 fertilized pastures in addition to the unfertilized grazed
the year before. In Kalfholt no lambs were put on kale in the autumn.
Half of the sheep had to be removed from the heavily grazed pastures at
Kelduhverfi 19th of July because of lack of feed. All the calves in Sölva-
holt were slaughtered at the end of the experiment. The experiment at
Hestur was redesigned, with part of the sheep put on common highland range
at the beginning of August and part of the lambs put on kale at the end of
September and kept there until late October. Plant preference study with
esopheagai fistulated ewes was performed but no intake study was done.
Finally an experiment with autumn grazing of lambs on differently managed
land was carried out.
Standing herbage measurements were done as before and samples were
collected for chemical and digestibility determinations. Changes in vege-
tation composition were also examined. Several other studies were made but
the analysis have not been finished.
Dr. Robert E. Bement, a grazing specialist from Colorado, U.S.A., the
projects supervisor for FAO came in September and stayed for 10 days.
Dr. A.J.F. Russel, a nutritionist, from the Hill Farming Organization in
Scotland came also in September on the behalf of IAEA and gave advises on
the experiments.
In the appendix there is a report by Mr. Matthías Eydal, from the
Institute of Experimental Pathology, on horse parasites in the experiment
at Kalfholt.