THIS GRASS DRAWS ANIMALS LIKE A MAGNET!

 

Rob M. - Roy, WA

We have been planting the HSGs for several years now on our dairy.  It has proven to be very persistent, productive and a cow favorite.  It has even produced well during the hot months of summer.  Our latest planting in a field that is usually a four feeding field has been extended to a five feeding field.  When the cows go into that field, they have been up in milk every time this grazing season.  Not only are we getting an extra 12 hour graze from the field, but much more milk per acre when we graze the field.  We will be planting more again this fall.

 

Jon Banson, Double J Jerseys, Monmouth Oregon

Pasture Sweet'ner grown for silage in the Willamette Valley.  Wet weather prevented cutting for a week, but still looks to be excellent feed for Volbeda Dairy in Albany Oregon.  Cutting taken June 1, 2009.

AberDart HSG has survived for three years now in the upper peninsula of Michigan!  It appears that the key to winter survival is to maintain a minimum of 3 inches of stubble heading into winter and then make sure to wait a little while after Spring growth begins before grazing.  It seems that the HSG varieties are one of the first grasses to start growing and as a result people turn the animals in to graze before the plant has been able to restore the carbs consumed over the winter. 

 

"I rated the High Sugar Ryegrass stands today and looks pretty good.  I was surprised to see these High Sugar Perennial Ryegrasses survived the third winter here in the UP.  Amazing!"

 

Dr. Doo-Hong Min

Michigan State University

"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.

John Metherell, milking 1,000 cows this dairy season, says a winter brassica crop of 48 hectares will be regrassed with HSGs this spring and other areas as they need renewing will be sown with High Sugar Grasses.  "It's all on the back of the research done and our own experience with HSGs," says Mr Metherell, farming in South Otago (NZ) for 35 years.  "It's easy to manage the HSG pasture and the cows like it."  HSG's resistance to pugging and pulling and the lack of evident damage by porina caterpillar are further benefits, he says.

 

Mr Metherell says he first planted High Sugar Grass after reading up on the new grass and was drawn to the concept of higher sugar content enabling the cow's rumen to more efficiently utilise grass protein and nitrogen.  "It makes sense to me," says Mr Metherell.

Jorge Hobi, 42, planted High Sugar Grass last Autumn.  Jorge and his wife Gerda have increased their herd's average milk yield to 600kg milksolids per cow per year while increasing the herd from 580-700 cows.  In 2007 they were named joint winners in south-West Victoria in the inaugural Dairy Business of the Year Award. 

 

Jorge has also been trialling other new ryegrasses at Heywood and in the process deduced that annual cultivars are unable to recover from the dry conditions on a farm that has no irrigation.  "But with the perennial HSG I know how it is performing visually, how quickly it's coming back (after grazing) and how much the cows like it, and from that point of view it's awesome," said Jorge.

Luke Anderson, managing an unirrigated 200 ha dairy farm for a New Zealand-based owner, said the performance of a trial paddock of HSG had convinced them to plant 60 more hectares last autumn and a further 20 hectares is to be sown this coming autumn.

 

"In its first summer we put our dry cows into the HSG and they ate it down to nothing and it fizzled out, like everything else.  But as soon as that first snap of rain came she just freshened up like a fresh cut lawn," said Luke.  The clincher was their first milking off the High Sugar Grass, which resulted in an increase of 200 litres from the 240-cow herd.  "A gate was left open and they wandered back into the High Sugar Grass field for a second go and their milk yield lifted again, another 100 litres," said Luke, 25, who has since seen consistent milk yield increases when the cows are in the HSG field.

 

This spring a second silage cut from the more established High Sugar Grass paddock was made early because its growth had "got too far ahead of the cows".  "I'm pretty much sold on High Sugar Grass.  If it wasn't performing I would say so...but my cows are doing the talking for me," said Luke.

Milking 520 cows, down from 570 the previous season, Clyde Douglas (NZ) is careful in maintaining pasture quality and over the past two autumns has regrassed more than 40 hectares into High Sugar Grass that he has mixed with clover, plantain and chicory to improve the pasture diet.  "Everything is looking very dry still (early February) but the HSG does have less seed head, probably because it's grazed lower, and therefore it's not as rank as other pasture," said Clyde.

 

He plans to sow another 40 ha of HSG within reach of a pivot irrigator that covers 80ha of the 200 ha farm but that has seldom been used.  The High Sugar Grass persistence is atributed to its thick density of roots and Clyde had seen it recover strongly from last summer's drought.  "Last autumn was very dry and it seems we are having a drought every year.  But the HSG bounces back with no dead spots and those paddocks are not being opened up by grass grub, which has been a problem, especially in our annual ryegrass."

Reinier and Ann van Zyl planted High Sugar Grass in April and they were opening the gate into it every 16 days when most of the farm was still on a 23-day round.  "It came through winter looking beautiful," said Reinier van Zyl, 37, a former agricultural engineer.  "The cows definitely have picked up on the HSG.  Our Fonterra supply dockets show an average lift per cow per day of 1.5 litres when grazing those paddocks for four days and milk yield was up again for the next four days when on the HSG at night," said Reinier.