"There's no free lunch in farming but I honestly think High Sugar Grass is the closest thing to it because for each mouthful eaten the animals get a lot more energy," says James Aitken of Hawke's Bay (New Zealand). He first planted High Sugar Grass last year in six hectares at the dairy farm in south-west Victoria (Australia) because there was little to lose in trying a new grass in drought-stressed paddocks. The HSG was sown in May and was not expected to survive its late planting followed by three weeks of floods and the region's chilling winds in July but was "miraculously" ready for grazing in spring.
The farm manager had been doubtful that 'an English grass' would prosper in harsh Austrailian conditions but was impressed by the response of cows after their first grazing "pushing on the fence to get back in". Scepticism turned to delight when their daily dairy factory receipts showed a substantial lift in milk yield, averaging two litres per cow, whenever the cows grazed the High Sugar Grass.
"If you can grow grass with higher feed value for the same amount of inputs and achieve almost a 10 percent jump in animal production, which seems pretty achievable, that's getting something for nothing." "This is a grass factory and any grass that converts more effiently into milk or meat protein is a grass that we have to grow," says James, now considering further stocking options to take full advantage.
