Proven performers headline Barenbrug Show line up
Specialist grass seed breeder Barenbrug is set to showcase its brand new Grass & Forage Seeds 2012 catalogue at this year’s AgriScot exhibition.
The stars of the new BarForage catalogue are the new and proven varieties featuring on the 2011/12 SAC Recommended List. Excitingly, this year sees the addition of two new varieties from the Barenbrug and AFBI joint breeding programme ’ intermediate tetraploid varieties, Seagoe and Braid.
Seagoe boasts top yields for both cutting and grazing. Its average cutting yield of 107 percent is matched only by its sister variety Malone while its grazing yield of 111 percent is the best available. Its other outstanding quality is its exceptionally long growing season ’ it’s the top variety for spring growth and still one of the top varieties for autumn growth. All this and it has good digestibility and persistency too.
Braid, meanwhile, is a very different type of intermediate tetraploid, but it has some great attributes for dairy farmers looking to get cows out early and keep them out as late as possible into autumn. Very late-heading ’ being only three days earlier than late varieties ’ it can almost be treated as a late-heading variety. Its spring growth is less than Seagoe, but it more than makes up for it through the main grazing season.
Next year Scottish farmers will also be able to grow the top-yielding perennial ryegrass variety on the SAC list for the first time, following the harvest of the first seed crop of Moyola this autumn. Moyola is an early-heading diploid, and was bred by crossing a New Zealand parent with the Irish variety Moy. This breeding has produced a grass with exceptional spring growth and first cut yields coupled with a performance that is maintained until late autumn.
And, with the inclusion for the first time of a Red Clover descriptive list to ’Grass and Clover Varieties’, the Barenbrug variety Lemmon comes under the spotlight. The list confirms the excellent performance of Lemmon, which is consistently one of the best performers in the three years of cutting trials. It also confirms its excellent reputation for combining yield with exceptional persistency.
The comprehensive list of varieties supplied by Barenbrug shows both the depth and breadth of its breeding and trialling systems. With the latest additions, the company now has 16 First Choice perennial ryegrasses included on the SAC list. The company’s trials at Aberdeen, Cropvale and Loughgall have been influential in selecting the best varieties for the UK from breeders around the world and the new additions to the SAC list are testament to this continued investment in breeding leading varieties.
Capitalising on this investment, Seagoe and Moyola ’ together with the already proven varieties, Copeland and Dundrum ’ feature in the BarForage range for 2012. Full details of which are available in the new BarForage catalogue, which is packed with indispensible advice and information on Barenbrug’s top-selling mixtures and is available for free from stand 128 in the Highland Hall. Also included in this year’s catalogue is the company’s organic grass seed together with the Hunters range of forage and whole crop, equestrian mixtures, game cover and wild flower seed.
Scottish regional manager for forage Mhairi Dawson, who’ll be on hand with information and advice throughout the show, says these new and proven varieties are just what Scotland’s livestock farmers need to make the most of what is currently a buoyant market. ’Recent figures from EBLEX show that a 20 percent weed infestation will reduce grass yield by at least 20 percent, which really highlights the importance of maintaining a high-quality sward. If they haven’t yet planned their reseeding programmes, I urge farmers to take advantage of our high-quality material in the form of these new varieties and the proven BarForage range.’
