About 40 percent are concrete and 60 percent are grassed waterways. At present, the percentage of concrete waterways is increasing. Some argue that continued expansion of concrete waterways is not sustainable because it leads to potential degradation of the earth's environment.
Typically, waterway management has relied heavily on herbicides, but most Korean farmers are interested in environmentally friendly agriculture. Therefore, the use of pesticides is restricted on waterways, as well as in rice fields. This concern has led to renewed efforts to use grassed waterways as an alternative to concrete. In addition, grassed waterways enhance the environmentally friendly image of agriculture that Korean farmers want to promote.
Learning of the University of Kentucky’s pasture evaluation system and work with perennial grasses, Kim coordinated a sabbatical to be spent with Dr. Ray Smith and university staff at the University of Kentucky.
During his six-month stay, Kim has been exposed to the processes used to monitor botanical composition and learned how to make recommendations for better management practices. He sees the value of using similar monitoring techniques to evaluate the waterways and manage the plant diversity within his own country.
According to Kim, the racehorse and riding horse industry in South Korea is growing rapidly. One of his goals is to learn more about the consulting program developed at the University of Kentucky for the horse pasture evaluation program. Kim says the forage industry in South Korea is quite advanced, but they’re moving from annuals into more perennial varieties, and he sees a good fit for perennial species in both waterway management and horse pastures.
Kim says South Korea doesn’t have a lot of permanent pastures, due in part to the importance of the half-year rice crop system. The traditional method has been to bring the forage to the livestock. Nearly all livestock operations in South Korea are set up similar to U.S. confinement dairies.
Farmable land values in South Korea are also very high due to population increases; there are 50 million people in an area about the size of Kentucky, which has 4.38 million according to the 2012 census. Much of the South Korean landscape is not suited to agriculture due to elevation and terrain, as 65 percent of the country is mountainous.
South Korea currently has a two-cropping system with rice as a cash crop, generally followed by winter cereal crops, such as annual ryegrass, rye and barley. The South Korean government and farmers are interested in developing forage quality for dairy herd improvement.
Because corn is a difficult crop to grow in their climate and two-cropping system, they are also interested in perhaps sorghum and sudangrass in the summer on uplands, then double-cropping it with cereal rye in the winter.
Kim says round-bale silage systems have really taken off in South Korea’s warming climate. He also says within the past five to 10 years, organic farms are increasing rapidly and gaining consumer interest, along with environmentally friendly farms. Within these types of farms, sorghum and sudangrass can be used as weed suppression while building organic matter in the soil.
Smith stated Kim’s visit has expanded the horizons of students at the University of Kentucky. “Many students that I work with have not traveled internationally or thought about agriculture in other countries,” Smith says. “It’s fun to see their minds start processing a broader view of agriculture.”
Smith also says that researchers in Kentucky sometimes look at annual systems as though they’re not practical or economically viable, but through his work with Kim, he has realized there are some good applications on farms or portions of farms in the eastern U.S.
For instance, winter cropping could be accomplished in Kentucky with winter cereals and then corn or sorghum in the summer. While it might not be immediately applicable, it might be a jumping-off point for a variety test program.
Smith says the idea exchange with Kim has been mutually beneficial, and perhaps a visiting exchange will be arranged in the future with South Korea. FG
