Not sweet enough
NIAB updates its herbage List
THE National Institute of Agricultural Botanys herbage recommended list has been updated with the inclusion of a new variety of Timothy grass which produces 17% more spring growth than any other recommended variety.
In all, 10 out of 28 candidate varieties have been added to the 2002 list for herbage. These include both perennial and Italian ryegrasses, Timothy and white clover.
"Four white clovers made it to the list, including small, medium and large leafed types. The small leafed AberAce is well suited to hard sheep grazing on upland farms because it can be tightly grazed, but it does not compete well with tall grass. The two medium leafed clovers, AberConcord and Chieftain, gave yields 25% greater than Menna."
Also new is an early heading Timothy variety, Comer. It has spring growth 17% greater than any other recommended variety with a D value of 67.
Prospect and Alamo Italian ryegrasses were also added. Alamo yielded 6% more than Tribune with a similar digestibility and better resistance to rhynchosporium. Prospect also had good resistance to rhyncho.
Two new diploid perennial ryegrasses were also provisionally recommended for general use due to their high grazing yields. *
AberAce is a newly recommended small-leaved clover for sheep.
Not sweet enough
ONLY 40% of grass has enough sugar for a stable fermentation, according to data from 3700 grass samples analysed by Promar laboratories.
"Silage-making bacteria can only use simple sugars, which in good weather accounts for half of total sugar in grass. But in poor weather this falls to 20%,with the rest being fructan," says Mark Smith of Genus.
"Powerstart is a silage additive containing bacteria which can overcome this sugar shortage by converting fructan into simple sugars. This results in a quality silage whatever the weather." *