Grass Forage Sci. 2019;1–13. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gfs | 1 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 | INTRODUCTION Permanent grasslands cover substantial parts of the landscape of Central Europe. In the 1990s, political changes in Central and Eastern Europe connected with economic transformation and restructur- ing led to a reduction in the market for agricultural products, and this in turn resulted in a collapse of agricultural production. In the Czech Republic, the importance of grasslands for fodder production Received: 22 May 2018 | Revised: 21 December 2018 | Accepted: 3 January 2019 DOI: 10.1111/gfs.12408 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Long-term effects of mulching, traditional cutting and no management on plant species composition of improved upland grassland in the Czech Republic Jan Gaisler 1 | Lenka Pavlů 1 | Chukwudi Nwaogu 1,2 | Klára Pavlů 1,2 | Michal Hejcman 1,2 | Vilém V. Pavlů 1,2 1 Department of Weeds and Vegetation of Agroecosystems, Grassland Research Station Liberec, Crop Research Institute, Liberec, Czech Republic 2 Department of Ecology, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic Correspondence Vilém V. Pavlů, Department of Weeds and Vegetation of Agroecosystems, Grassland Research Station Liberec, Crop Research Institute, Liberec, Czech Republic. Emails: pavlu@vurv.cz and pavluv@fzp.czu.cz Funding information Interreg V A SN/CZ, Grant/Award Number: 100264999 – DiverGrass; Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, Grant/ Award Number: RO0417 Abstract A shortage of available livestock for utilizing grassland biomass in Central Europe is challenging for the management of both semi-natural grasslands and previously in- tensified (limed, fertilized and reseeded) upland grasslands. An alternative method of grassland management is mulching, in which aboveground biomass is cut, crushed and subsequently spread on the surface. This paper reports on an experiment to compare three different mulching frequencies (one, two and three times per year) with an unmanaged treatment and traditional management of two cuts per year (con- trol) on a previously improved upland meadow. Plant species composition was moni- tored over 13 years. Traditional management of two cuts with biomass removal was the most suitable method for maintaining plant species richness and diversity, and both were reduced significantly in the once-mulched and especially in the unman- aged treatment. Tall dicotyledonous weeds such as Urtica dioica, Cirsium arvense and Aegopodium podagraria were promoted by the unmanaged treatment and by mulch- ing once a year. Higher frequency of defoliation had positive effects on the spread of short forbs such as Taraxacum spp., Plantago lanceolata and Trifolium repens. After eight years, there were changes in sward structure in the unmanaged and mulched- once-a-year treatments, with increase in the tall/short species ratio. In conclusion, repeated mulching cannot substitute fully for traditional two-cut management in im- proved upland meadows without decreasing plant species richness and diversity, and changing the sward structure. Although mulching once a year may prevent invasion by shrubs and trees, it also supports the spread of weedy species similar to no management. KEYWORDS abandonment, botanical composition, diversity, extensification, functional groups, succession