Short-lived Forage Trial Results With Long-view Potential

Jul 22, 2022

By Tyler Rice

This is the same annual ryegrass trial, photos taken 10 days apart, April 19 (top photo) and April 29 (bottom photo). (Photo credit: Tyler Rice, Penn State)

Are you a producer seeking variety information on fall-planted, spring harvested forages? Are you hoping to harvest the rewards of planting a cover crop that has tangible forage value in the Spring? If this sounds like you, you will want to see the latest results of Short-Lived Grass, Winter Forage, and Cover Crops trials conducted by the Penn State Forage Variety Evaluation Program.

These series of trials are typically planted in mid to late September. In the Spring the trials are divided by harvest approach. In the single-cut system, varieties are selectively harvested at mid to late boot stage to achieve an optimum balance between forage yield and forage quality. In a multi-cut system, varieties are harvested earlier (approximate flag leaf, with a target height of 20 inches). Both of these systems demonstrate the ability to grow a quality crop that adds value in the margins of the season in order to maximize field and farm potential, doing more with less!

Classes of species in these particular trials include the following: Annual Ryegrass (both Single and Multi-cut approach), Timothy-as-an-annual, Cereal Rye, Triticale, Barley, and Mixed Species. The detailed information can be found in the " Short-Lived Grass, Winter Forage and Cover Crops trial results 2021-2022 ".

Please keep in mind when reviewing the yield and stand tables that differences between varieties are significant only if the least significant difference (LSD) between varieties is exceeded. LSD is the minimum difference between any two varieties necessary for us to be 95 percent confident that this difference is not attributable to mere chance. For example, if variety A is 0.50 ton/acre higher in yield than variety B, then this difference is statistically significant if the LSD is 0.50 or less. If the LSD is 0.51 or greater, then we cannot be confident that variety A really yields higher than B under given environmental and management conditions.

The value for coefficient of variation (CV) is a measure of relative variation useful in evaluating the precision achieved in an experiment. In grain and forage trials, for example, the CV for yield often is between 5 and 20 percent. Acceptable levels of the CV vary for each trait measured. Confidence in the reliability of the experimental results declines as the CV increases. Uncontrollable or immeasurable variations in soil fertility, soil drainage, and other environmental factors contribute to increased CV levels.

Source : psu.edu

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators