We report on the latest results from the on-farm grass variety evaluations. The results from the first four years show that there is a big variation in the performance of grass varieties out on farms. When looking at the three most important traits – grass growth, grass quality and number of grazings – only about half of the 11 varieties performed to acceptable levels in all three areas. Having results from on-farm performance is a real step forward.
Despite all the time and work in getting a variety approved and on a recommended list, half of them still performed poorly on farms. While plant breeders need to wake up to the importance of the new on-farm traits, farmers should only be using the best varieties too. While there are differences between the ploidy groups, in general, tetraploids are outperforming diploids in all the important areas. We are at the point where tetraploids should be considered on all soil types, and tetraploids plus clover on all relatively dry soils for that added turbo boost.
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We report on the latest results from the on-farm grass variety evaluations. The results from the first four years show that there is a big variation in the performance of grass varieties out on farms. When looking at the three most important traits – grass growth, grass quality and number of grazings – only about half of the 11 varieties performed to acceptable levels in all three areas. Having results from on-farm performance is a real step forward.
Despite all the time and work in getting a variety approved and on a recommended list, half of them still performed poorly on farms. While plant breeders need to wake up to the importance of the new on-farm traits, farmers should only be using the best varieties too. While there are differences between the ploidy groups, in general, tetraploids are outperforming diploids in all the important areas. We are at the point where tetraploids should be considered on all soil types, and tetraploids plus clover on all relatively dry soils for that added turbo boost.
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