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Level Terracing for Pasture Lands

McNeill, Miss.

Abstract

Erosion on permanent pastures once sodded to turf grasses has been shown by carefully controlled experiments at several experiment stations to be a very minor factor in soil losses. The Missouri Experiment Station has shown that on bluegrass sod it would require 3,547 years to erode the seven inches of top soil.

From the above it would appear that terracing of pasture lands to prevent erosion would not be necessary except for special conditions to check erosion on steep slopes until a sod could be formed. However, terraces, especially terraces without a fall, may influence other factors of crop production besides erosion. For forage production the amount and distribution of rainfall is a limiting factor in the tonnage produced and for pastures is very often a limiting factor in the seasonal distribution of pasture growth. On even moderate grades, especially with porous soils, the runoff and leaching is so rapid that the soil moisture may become deficient for pasture growth even in short periods of drought or during seasons of periodically light rainfall.