Capflor® : un outil pour concevoir des mélanges de prairies à flore variée

Capflor®: a tool for designing species mixtures and thus creating diversified grasslands

An agroecological alternative to high-artificial-input forage monocultures exists: the use of diversified grasslands (DGs). Created by sowing complex seed mixtures, DGs persist for more than 3 years and contain over 6 species/varieties from several plant families. Current DG planning methods are not very accessible to French farmers. Here, we describe a decision-making tool called Capflor®, which we developed in collaboration with farmer collectives. It allows farmers to design species mixtures that are adapted to their needs. Capflor® incorporates current knowledge in ecologyand the agricultural sciences and employs a filtering approach. It applies 3 successive filters to yield a final list of 6-14 species that can be used to generate a DG. The tool does not recommend specific species proportions, which will be location dependent.