Perennial rye-grass forms the backbone of most temperate dairy pastures.
Nothing can match rye-grass for forage quality, production and versatility, making it a popular choice amongst farmers.
In recent decades, enormous leaps have been made in breeding new rye-grass cultivars to help dairy farmers grow more pasture, and profit from its low-cost source of energy for milk production.
According to the 2023 Forage Value Index developed by Dairy Australia, top-performing cultivars — through their improved seasonal growth — deliver more than $250/ha/year of additional value, over and above, outdated cultivars such as Victorian perennial rye-grass (South West Victoria: Forage Value Index 2023 – Perennial Ryegrass, October 2023, Dairy Australia) without considering other improvements like forage quality.
While forage yield (and the seasonal timing of yield) continues to be a core focus of Barenbrug’s rye-grass breeding efforts, other traits are being co-developed to help improve farmers’ profitability.
Recently, through partnerships with DairyBio, new novel endophytes like NEA12 have been released to improve pestilence resistance without impeding livestock performance.
However in the near future, again through Barenbrug’s internal breeding efforts and collaborations, farmers will be benefit from the next leap in breeding technologies.
These technologies, like genomic selection, not only target yield but also novel traits. These traits include: higher-energy cultivars, plants with water use efficiency and enhanced persistence, nitrogen use efficiency and increased digestibility, all of which will deliver improved farmer profitability.
Recently, Barenbrug’s breeding team developed a cultivar of perennial rye-grass (Array NEA2) that Barenbrug says will not only deliver class-leading forage yield, quality and persistence, but also exhibits improved growth under low soil nitrogen concentrations.
Improved nutrient utilisation in low N soils, through a comparative ability to scavenge soil N, could help to reduce nitrate leaching while producing additional yield in these N limiting conditions. Given most systems experience N limiting periods during the year, both farmers and the environment benefit from this trait.
Array NEA2 perennial rye-grass will be available for the 2024 sowing season through your local Barenbrug reseller.
Barenbrug is committed to develop an ever-improving feedbase for Australian farmers of both today and the future.