A South Otago farming family who recently celebrated 100 years on their farm has no regrets about shifting from conventional pastures to specially-bred high sugar grasses – they say benefits to stock and land are significant and long-lasting.
Scott McKenzie runs a large sheep, beef and forestry operation near Clinton. The 800-hectare property is home to three generations of the McKenzie family: McKenzie and his wife Jo, McKenzie's brother Ryan and his wife Jennel, and their parents Colin and Elaine.
Nearly 600ha is planted in Germinal's high sugar grasses and clovers. The remaining land is largely unproductive hill country and used for forestry.
McKenzie planted the farm's first paddock of Germinal high sugar grass in 2005. Fifteen years later, the pasture is persisting – an impressive performance on a property renowned for environmental extremes.
"The weather is fast-changing and very variable," McKenzie says. "Therefore any pasture we plant needs to handle both the wet and dry. The sheep certainly like the high sugar grass, they will often eat that over other recognised varieties."
McKenzie is using high sugar grasses, along with Germinal's white clover varieties, as part of a permanent pasture mix. Dense, persistent pasture has been the result and the high levels of digestibility have lifted animal production.
Germinal's high sugar ryegrass, such as AberGreen, have been bred to contain a higher level of water-soluble carbohydrates (sugars) than traditional perennial ryegrass. This creates a better balance of energy and protein in the rumen, allowing the microbes responsible for the breakdown of forage to operate more efficiently.
The result is that more protein is converted to milk and meat and less is excreted into the environment. AberGreen is the first perennial ryegrass to offer this close-to-optimum energy:protein ratio.
Quality of grass is just as important as total yield. A digestibility gain of one per cent is worth three per cent of yield – animals have a higher voluntary intake with high digestibility and are able to absorb more energy from the feed; that means animals fed on good quality grass will yield more. AberGreen is 5.5 per cent higher in digestibility when compared to a standard ryegrass.
McKenzie also recognises the benefits of the right clover mix in the farm's pasture, in terms of boosting persistence, increasing resistance to drought and wet and providing a valuable source of nitrogen.
Germinal's AberLasting is an innovative cross between Caucasian and white clovers, proven to increase pasture persistence. The superior root system of AberLasting clover provides numerous benefits, including the ability to withstand heavy grazing and faster recovery than traditional white clover.
In a drought tolerance experiment, AberLasting maintained leaf water content for one week longer than traditional white clover when completely without water. AberLasting production paddocks have seen tolerance to Clover Root Weevil over second and third years under pressure.
AberLasting also has superior cold tolerance. It can withstand overnight temperatures down to -20 degrees Celsius, which will kill off 70 per cent of the most cold-tolerant white clover varieties.
"All of our clovers are from Germinal," McKenzie says, "and the pasture seems to really hang on in the dry. We had a clover root weevil problem a few years ago and we were still able to fatten the lambs on Germinal grass. The pasture also withstands pugging; the grass can be black in winter and come away good as gold."
With New Zealand adopting strict environmental regulations governing farming operations, clover will become an important environmental mitigation tool for farmers, says Germinal New Zealand General Manager Sarah Gard.
"White clover, a natural nitrogen fixer, is a low cost and practical resource for farmers. It can reduce the cost and environmental impact of artificial fertiliser," she says.
Germinal, based in Ireland and the United Kingdom, has supplied the New Zealand market with innovative clovers and grasses for more than 15 years. Product performance is built on the integrity of tested research and development by Germinal's research partner the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) in Wales.
"This exclusive collaboration allows us to draw on world-leading science and apply it to New Zealand's unique conditions," says Gard. "We have also established a plant breeding programme in Canterbury, as we recognise the importance of breeding for New Zealand, in New Zealand. This research is supported by on-farm trials throughout the country – ensuring our products perform under real-life conditions and for a range of farming systems."
She says Germinal's partnership with IBERS enables the company to contribute to the long-term sustainability and profitability of New Zealand's farming industry, by producing top performing pasture varieties with unique characteristics.
For more information visit www.germinal.co.nz