Erosion TTool/Implementation of a grass strip

Technical articles - Erosion TTool - Érosion des sols

Grandes cultures Grandes cultures Erosion TTool

Illustration of the practice of establishing a grass strip within the serious game Erosion TTOOL. Credit: Delphine Hombrouckx

Grass strips are agro-landscape devices running along watercourses or installed transversely to the slope.

Description

Advantages

• Effectively helps to combat diffuse erosion
• Reduces the speed and amount of runoff water.
• Helps to protect watercourses.

Disadvantages

• Loss of cultivable land area.

Advice

• The establishment of a grass strip can be done in several locations:
  • Within plots.
  • At plot edges and at slope breaks.
  • In runoff concentration zones at corners.
  • In meadows perpendicular to the talweg.
  • Downstream along watercourses.

• Sowing a grass strip can be done during periods when the risk of runoff is minimal (from March to June or from August to September). The sown varieties can consist of an easy-to-maintain turf mixture (type meadow: tall fescue, ryegrass, meadow bluegrass) at a high density (30kg/ha).

• Maintenance of the grass strip is done by mowing (>15cm) 1 to 2 times per year in late spring or early summer with the possibility of removing the cut material. If there is a strong accumulation of sediments: spring-tooth harrow.

Cost

• Installation: €250/ha.
• Maintenance: €50/ha.