Restoration of grassland multifunctionality by direct drilling method - a solution for sustainable farming system.

The durability of production systems is reflected both in their capacity for maintaining the level of production and the environmental quality for a long period. Additionally to the decisive role of grasslands for animal feeding the importance of these areas for environmental and rural development (through improving soil fertility and prevention of soil erosion, land sliding and floods, conserving the biodiversity, management of the water supply and landscape conservation) has to be taken into account. The field experiments were carried out in 2004-2006 in three locations, to investigate the improvement in grass and legumes content of various degraded grasslands. The experiments were based on utilization of a direct drilling machine, MSPD 2.5 type a research result of the ResearchDevelopment Institute for Grassland — ICDP Brasov, Romania. The direct drilling method for improving degraded grasslands (over-sowing) was highly successful in increasing sown grass-legumes content in the population of indigenous plants, providing a productive sward.