Abstract
There were abundant crushed wood fragments (CWF) upon and in the seedbeds after establishing a ploughless pasture by a new method with a stumpcutter-bushcutter system. We investigated the effects of the coverage of CWF and the water supply from the soil on the initial growth of herbage on the seedbeds. Most of stumps, cut-branches and cut-trunks were distributed on the ridge-shaped slopes and/or the valley-shaped slopes before establishment. They were crushed into CWF during establishment and then they were distributed almost uniformly on the whole surface of the test field. It seemed that the initial growth of the herbage (Lolium perenne L., Dactylis glomerata L., Poa platensis L., and Trifolium repens L.) was influenced not only by the quantity (the coverage of surface of seedbed) of CWF but also by the capacity for holding and supplying water from the soil related with the micro-topographic characteristics of the slopes. 80 days after the establishment, the areas of well-grown herbage plots in the test field increased. The dry weight of standing crops in the well-grown herbage plots was not so significantly different from that in the adjacent control plots established by the ordinary ploughless method.
