The water use efficiencies (WUE) of a range of temperate pasture species were calculated from measurements on several different dryland and irrigated pastures in Canterbury. The annual WUE ranged from 6.7 kg DM/ ha/mm for a dryland cocksfoot pasture to 40 kg DM/ha/ mm for a dryland lucerne crop grown on a Wakanui silt loam soil. Keywords: Cichorium intybus, Dactylis glomerata, Lolium perenne, Medicago sativa, Trifolium ambiguum, T. michelianum, T. pratense, T. repens, T. subterraneum
