As leys (sown grasslands grown in rotation with annual grain crops) constitute upwards of 75% of arable land use in northern Sweden, they represent an important feature of the region’s landscape. SITES Röbäcksdalen is situated within Röbäcksslätten, the largest continuous agricultural land area in northern Sweden. Röbäcksdalen’s research infrastructure includes over 280 hectares of agricultural land, most of which is conventionally managed by the research barn to provide feed for its dairy cows. In 2013, SITES initiated SMURF (SITES Monitoring of Umeå’s Research Fields), a data collection program to monitor the productivity and quality of the ley fields at Röbäcksdalen. Each year, management actions (sowing, fertilization, ground preparation, and harvesting) are documented, total yields are recorded, and samples from each field are taken for comprehensive analyses of forage quality.
The data collected by SMURF presents a unique opportunity for researchers to study the long-term implications of management and climate on ley productivity and quality using large-scale fields. Additionally, the yearly field maps provide the potential to combine collected data with supplementary information, such as satellite data. Data collected from 2020-2024 is currently being processed, with the aim to upload the dataset to the SITES Data Portal in 2025.
The ley fields are harvested 2-3 times each summer and the forage stored in silos to produce silage feed for the research barn’s dairy cows. This summer over 2800 tons of fresh forage was harvested from 127 hectares of leys (Photo: Patrick Eriksson)