OCTOBER 2019 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


17 Forage trial presents options for producers


Plot walk of 10 alfalfa and grass varieties highlight of field day by JACKIE PEARASE


GRINDROD—Over 50 farmers gathered in Grindrod on September 5 to enhance their forage knowledge at Okanagan Fertilizer’s first forage field day.


The lunch-and-learn event


allowed producers to see, touch and ask questions about the five forage grasses and five alfalfa species planted in early April at Sunninghill Holsteins. Okanagan Fertilizer


organized the event to complement its annual corn and silage field days. Representatives from


Matsqui Ag-Repair demonstrated farm equipment from McHale and JCB while DLF Pickseed representative Kevin Dunse led a “plot walk” to showcase the forages planted at the de Dood farm. Curt de Dood said a heavy


downpour two days before the Thursday event resulted in the test plots looking a bit forlorn but he still expects good tonnage from the second cut done for the equipment demonstrations. “I’ll probably never see a new seeding as good as this one on a dryland field. It was really impressive,” he notes. “We got a real good first cut off it … the feed quality should be quite good.” De Dood planted the grass plots with a mix of 85% grass and 15% alfalfa by weight. The results surprised Dunse, who had to dig deep to find the grasses amongst the densely growing alfalfa. “I wouldn’t say this is disappointing; it’s just not what we expected. The grass didn’t come in like we wanted,” he says. Dunse expects


improvement, however. “You don’t expect to get the best grass establishment in the first year. It’s always best to just let it grow and wait until the second year before you determine what’s coming up and what’s not,” he says. “One of the things about forages, there’s a lot of different ways to get your plot to go.” For the de Dood fields, he suggests broadcasting more grass seed in the spring using a harrow if the alfalfa is still growing in too thick, Reseeding with a


grass/alfalfa blend after harvest can add a few more years to a dwindling field. Overseeding with alfalfa can aid a poorly performing field, and reseeding a grass- dominant field with alfalfa can extend its productive life, he adds.


Bromegrasses Dunse was excited to


present the hybrid bromegrass AC Success because it means farmers no longer have to choose between the positive qualities of smooth and meadow bromegrasses. “Up until a few years ago people wanted the smooth brome because of the quality and productivity but they ended up going with meadow brome just because [smooth brome] was too aggressive,” he explains. AC Success produces a taller plant (about five feet) with less basal growth (a negative meadow brome quality). It’s more palatable to animals because it isn’t as hairy as other varieties. “Three, four years down the


road you will still see this in the rows. It will not creep out and that was the biggest problem with the smooth brome,” Dunse adds. “It is moderately drought-tolerant because you have that meadow brome influence but it’s faster to grow and it has improved feed quality because of the smooth brome side of things. So it really is the best of both worlds.” Dunse presented Tower tall


fescue that tolerates drought, high moisture and higher saline conditions. “Anything you can think of that will send your growing conditions sideways, tall fescue will tolerate that,” he says. “Once I can get tall fescue to grow, then it encourages the growth of everything else that’s in that blend. It breaks up the soil a little bit, it provides a bit of protection, a little bit of coverage and other things will come in behind it.”


Orchardgrass is “cow candy,” DLF Pickseed rep Kevin Dunse told growers at a forage field day in Grindrod in mid-September. He called the test plots planted this spring “really impressive.” JACKIE PEARASE PHOTO


It is also endophyte-free


like the Mahulena festulolium growing in another plot. A cross between tall fescue and perennial rye grass, festulolium tolerates poor growing conditions like fescue but grows quickly with good feed quality like rye. “It’s a brand new grass but


it’s checking all the necessary boxes,” Dunse notes. “If you had an area where the growing conditions were a little bit varied and you were suffering from a little bit drier conditions, this would probably be the better way to go than straight tall fescue.” Orchardgrass is an option


for farmers with an eye to protein and palatability for horses and cows.


See COW on next page o


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