Herb’type© : a new support for assessing agricultural services provided by permanent grasslands

Abstract

Herb'type is a decision support tool for the determination of services (value of use) provided by permanent grasslands (level and temporalityof biomass production, digestibility, flexibility of use). In the first part we summarize the ecological concepts on which thiswork is based. In a second part we describe the procedure that allows the evaluation of agronomic services from a simplified botanicalsurvey. From the distribution of grass functional types in the grassland, we propose some rules for data aggregation and interpretationwhich allow to pass from the functional type composition to the different items associated with the grassland value of useand then, to get aid for action. This work results from narrow collaboration with farmers and extension services during on farm evaluationsand training sessions which allows case studies analysis. In the last part we give some illustrations at different scales(grassland, farm) for Herb'type evaluation and introduction of some of its potentialities. We finally introduce the assets and limits ofthe method and the recent avenues of research under study.