What is the composition of your pasture? Is it just grass? Or a diverse array of broadleaves (legumes etc)? What percentage of the plot is occupied by weeds (undesirables)?

Track the establishment of ley sowings, eg herbal leys. Are you getting any of those expensive small seeds showing in the sward?

What to record

% cover to the nearest 10% for each plant type: broadleaf, grasses and undesirables (this is an estimate, so don’t worry about exact numbers).

Take a photo of anything interesting you find which you might want to ID later on!

Equipment

Quadrat

How to do the test

1. Decide whether you want to test the field more generally (under the W walk category), or repeatedly test a specific sample site over time (using the GPS feature to find the same sample location). Read more info here on how to do a W walk.

2. Within the quadrat estimate the percentage cover of broadleaf species you can find.

3. Record the percentage in the Soilmentor app.

4. Repeat steps 1-2 for % cover of grass species and then % cover of undesirable species.

Get started with Soilmentor

2.0 % Broadleaf, Grasses, Undesirables Cover