How do I know which species to choose?
The choice of which variety and species to grow is usually governed by the livestock enterprises on the farm, rather than the potential of the pasture for conservation.
However, particularly in areas of poor summer rainfall, high-quality temperate pasture silage is having an increasingly important role, enabling producers to achieve demanding production targets.
In these situations producers need to rethink their species choice to ensure the combination of pasture species grown can produce silage cuts in most seasons. Where climate and soil conditions allow, a range of mixtures may be grown on the one farm.
This will help increase pasture utilisation and aid management by extending the spring growing season. An example of this could be a mixture of the later-maturing perennial ryegrass/ subclover/white clover on the more fertile, sheltered areas, with phalaris/cocksfoot/ subclover the main mixture on the balance of the farm.
Such a combination takes advantage of the spread of maturity of the species and extends the potential production period in the event of late spring/summer rainfall. If a large amount of silage is to be cut, having a range of pastures with varying maturities extends the harvest window.
Although the flowering dates shown in Figure 4.2 do not apply in all areas, the graph does indicate the differences in maturity and digestibility levels that occur between temperate pasture species. The data also highlight the effect of maturity on digestibility level. Note that these data are from 1968 research and do not reflect the diversity of maturity now available with the wide range of current varieties.
The digestibility values in this study are low, which may be a consequence of seasonal conditions.
