Specialty Seeds Australia are now able to offer
Australian Farmers the only diploid, permanent perennial High Sugar
Grasses available in Australia.
Hear how AberDart and AberMagic have been going...
"Costs keep going up and the best way to make money out of dairy
cows is to grow a grass that feeds them properly. Our milk yield
will lift 30 percent when the whole farm is in AberDart. When you
see cows taking it down to the ground then you know you have a
tasty grass. It stood up to 45 degree days in February, then four
weeks of 38 degree days followed by sub-zeros in May."
"AberDart's growth rate is similar by sight (to a tetraploid)
but the AberDart is certainly denser. It's better after a silage
cut, which is important to us. There's less bare ground under
irrigation, which means more water absorption. The AberDart had
fewer weeds and its density means it should withstand high traffic.
The cows did seem to eat the AberDart more."
"The cows certainly eat the AberDart down harder and easier. You
don't have to push them. It has extremely dense tillering and dense
drymatter content but the cows eat it down to low residuals far
easier (to 700-to-850 kgDM/ha) than other grasses. I estimate
there's 20-to-25% more feed in an AberDart break. More feed means
more milk."
"I have hammered the AberDart. Its grazed hard and keeps coming
back.It makes a good silage that's all leaf, and as pasture it
thickens up well and maintains quality. I'm still happy. When you
see the farm in summer they're the green paddocks. Our third year
AberDart is really good and has very few weeds. The cows milk well
off it, up by as much as 1.5 litres per cow per day. When you find
a grass that's working for you, you keep using it."
"We are grazing AberDart at 2800-3000kgDM every 15 days (in
spring) while other paddocks with the same fertiliser, soil and
water are in a 23 day round. Fonterra supply dockets show a 1.2
litre lift per cow per day when on AberDart for four days. Milk
flow was again up for the next four days when on AberDart at
night."
"In it's first summer we put our dry cows into AberDart and they
ate it down to nothing and it fizzled out, like everything else.
But as soon as that first snap of rain came in February she just
freshened up like a fresh cut lawn. In spring we had taken a second
silage cut because it had got too far ahead of the cows. I am
pretty much sold on high sugar grass. Their first milking off
AberDart we saw a good increase. If it wasn't performing I would
say so . but my cows are doing the talking for me."
"The AberDart is so dense, even when sown at 18kg/ha. There's
few weeds and those paddocks stood out when the rest of the farm
had browned off ... and they kicked in quickly when it did rain.
After three years the AberDart still looks good so we put in 40ha
this March (to total 70ha). The cows like it and will give an extra
half to one litre of milk per cow per milking when fed AberDart. It
all adds up."
