From dry to damp: getting your pastures ready
New Zealand farmers know that pastoral fortunes can shift rapidly once summer’s extreme dryness gives way to cooler, wetter autumn conditions.
Twenty-two years of research, input from a leading animal scientist, intense genetic selection and rigorous testing have led to a new, easy-eating perennial ryegrass with improved nitrogen uptake.
That means your cows don’t have to work so hard to consume the thousands of bites they need to sustain themselves each day, and you can utilise nitrogen fertiliser more efficiently, says Barenbrug pasture systems manager Blair Cotching.
The new ryegrass is called Array. It was bred for high intake and easy grazing with dense, erect tillers that stand tall and literally put themselves closer to cows’ mouths.
“A dairy cow might take 25,000 bites a day,” Cotching says. “That demands a lot of energy. Array takes some of the physical effort out of this process, so cows have more time to relax, ruminate and produce milk.”
In creating Array, Barenbrug sought advice from Dr Alastair Nicol, then senior lecturer in animal science at Lincoln University, and renowned for his work on grazing behaviour and plant preference.
Like all the company’s new grasses, Array was subjected to restricted inputs during development to help ensure it could cope with real-world conditions on farm.
Unlike others, however, it showed a rare ability to grow more than its peers under low nitrogen, Cotching says.
A specific trial, comparing the same cultivars sown and managed identically under high, medium and deficient nitrogen levels, confirmed Array had the edge when nitrogen was scarce.
“Herbage samples showed no difference between the quality or nutrient status of all the cultivars we compared under the three treatments,” he says.
“But Array grew significantly more in the nitrogen deficit plots than the others, showing it was able to extract much more nitrogen from the soil.”
What does this mean for your farm? First, more even pasture growth at times when soil nitrogen is deficient, something that happens on virtually every farm at some stage during the year, says Cotching.
Secondly, it’s a win for the environment because it gives farmers the potential to utilise nitrogen more efficiently.
As for the amount of feed it provides, Array is not only the highest yielding ryegrass Barenbrug has bred, but is unbeaten in the National Forage Variety Trials for both total yield, and winter growth.
Independent, industry-run and audited, these trials provide a forum for pasture companies to test their breeding material, and rank its performance compared with others.
Array is the only diploid perennial ryegrass in the top 5-star category for all regions of the DairyNZ Forage Value Index, and has Barenbrug’s highest ranking for pasture persistence.
It comes with NEA2 endophyte and is available in limited quantities this autumn.
