Fifty percent of grass grown is wasted in UK

How efficient are you at feeding the rumen? That was the question Grassmaster Charlie Morgan put to sheep breeders at last week’s round table meeting.

“What you do for a living is sell protein, so you have got to get nitrogen efficiency working well. You can have all the best genetics but if you feed like you would a donkey you will end up with a donkey,” he said.

Grow, manage and utilise, that is what you have to do to get the most from your grass, according to Mr Morgan. He said 50% of grass grown in the UK was wasted.

“We are capable of growing 10t grass of DM/ha yet the figure shows we are only growing 6t of DM/ha. I do appreciate there are geographical difficulties, but we really have got to optimise what we feed from grass.”

Mr Morgan explained that high sugar ryegrasses could help improve efficiency of rumen function which in turn could increase nitrogen use efficiency by up to 24% and reduce nitrogen lost to the environment. “You need to feed the rumen bugs for them to be efficient,” he said.

However, despite high sugar ryegrass receiving much publicity over recent weeks, Mr Morgan admitted they were not the answer to everything. ÒIf farms are drought tolerant then people need to be looking at different varieties of grass and other crops,” he said.

For example red clover is one of the biggest steps forward we have ever had, admitted Mr Morgan. “Red clover is drought tolerant, fixes 300kg/ha of N and is a very flexible product. Breeding programmes are also looking at tolerance of grazing, improved crown survival and improved quality among other things,” he said.

But one major area Mr Morgan said focus had to be paid to was the levels of phosphate being used. “If we continue using phosphate at the levels we do, we will have run out by 2070 and unlike oil, there is no replacement for phosphate,” he said.