British Seed Houses is offering £500-worth of "Aber" High Sugar Grass mixtures, or forage maize seed to the same value, as the prize in a competition at the Dairy Event (17th and 18th September, Stoneleigh-Park, Warwickshire).
"Aber" varieties of High Sugar Grass have been developed by the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research. They are bred to contain a very high level of water soluble carbohydrate (sugar) for increased livestock performance. In feeding trials, Aber High Sugar Grasses lifted milk yields by up to 6% over the grazing season, improved diet digestibility and dry-matter intakes, and also reduced the amount of feed nitrogen lost to the environment by up to 24%.
The winner of the BSH Dairy Event competition will be able to choose either of the two Aber HSG mixtures that are now commercially available: AberHSG1 has been designed for long-term cutting and grazing leys and contains the perennial High Sugar ryegrasses, AberDart and AberAvon, with a blend of persistent Aber white clover varieties. AberHSG2-Hybrids has been developed for short to medium term leys for rotational grazing and conservation. It contains the Hybrid High Sugar varieties, AberStorm and AberEcho, with the AberDairy white clover blend.
If the competition winner chooses forage maize seed, he or she will be able to select any "Gold" variety, including the popular Goldcob (see attached pic). Alternatively they can have seed from Scimitar, the earliest forage maize on the UK market. This exceptional variety has the potential to extend the UK's forage maize growing area and is the first to ever achieve a score of 11 for maturity on the UK Descriptive list. The unprecedented earliness of Scimitar is achieved without a yield penalty. The variety gained the highest dry-matter percentage in NL1 and NL2 trials in 2000 and 2001, and has a high starch yield resulting from early cob ripeness and high cob to stover ratio.
Farmers can enter the British Seed Houses' contest on the company's Dairy Event stand in Exhibition Hall 1 by completing four simple multiple-choice questions about High Sugar Grass and early maturing forage maize varieties. More information is available from British Seed Houses at Bristol (0117 982
3691) and Lincoln (01522 868714) or www.britishseedhouses.com
