Northland Annual Legume Project

Project Overview

Our target is a substantial improvement in the legume content of our Northland pastures. This is to improve the overall pasture growth and quality, especially in the July to January period.

Our major emphasis is the integration of the various annual legumes into our grazing systems with their associated 12 month feed demand. This leads into most of the annual legumes being trialled, having been sown with companion species: annual or Italian ryegrass at reduced seeding rates for supplying feed in the June and July period, plus red clover to supply feed in the December to March period.

The emphasis for our project is the monitoring of a range of these mixes under variable Northland conditions.  Monitoring will include:

• Dry matter, pasture composition at one site
• Paddock germination and establishment counts
• Plant parasitic nematode counts
• Buried seed counts in autumn 2016
• Basic soil fertility, clover and deep soil nitrogen sampling
• Feed quality
• Growth estimates for some pastures during the August to December period using pre and post grazing measurements
• Costs and benefits of these annual

To date, we have 34 paddocks sown into annual legumes: some mixes being very similar between farms, but other mixes being totally different.  Seed mixes have been based on:

• Sulla sown on its own, or with red clover
• Tic Bean (Faba Bean) sown on its own, but with small areas having an annual legume oversown into the Tic Bean paddock
• Persian and balansa clover making up the majority of plants generally with an annual/Italian rye and red clover as companion species
• Two paddocks of Berseem clover
• One paddock of Arrowleaf clover

Berseem annual clover with Italian rye as companion species at Ivan Stanicich’s on 13 July 2015 (55 days post sowing)

 Progress with the Project – July 2015

At this stage we have a “pale green” light from DairyNZ for funding through their On-farm Innovation Fund. We will be having more discussion with DairyNZ regarding more agronomic measurements for this, our first year. This should be sorted by the end of July 2015 and the outcome will strengthen our project.

Here’s an update of establishment, growth rate data and seed germination results.

Success!

Some 80% of paddocks have had a good to very good germination and most of these have continued to establish well.  More data and updates in future reports.

There are two isolated problems with substantial impact for the legumes/pastures involved.

1. Persian, balansa and red clover seedlings being severely eaten at Neil Brown’s – Okaihau, on a semi- volcanic soil. At this stage we think it has been largely due to white fringed weevil. More insect monitoring in the spring for this site.
2. Other wildlife including pigs (3 less now), peacocks, pheasants, ducks eating 20-25% of tic bean seedlings at Gavin & Tui Ussher’s – Kaitaia, one pheasant shot and eaten, had 50+ tic bean seeds in its crop! Another 10% of the area of the paddock being very wet, has no tic bean plants surviving.

Pasture Data  –  Growth Rates

Location – Murray Jagger, Whangarei Heads

Tic (Faba) Bean at Ivan Stanisich’s north of Kaitaia on 13 July 2015 from 19 May sowing (55 days post sowing)

Tic (Faba) Bean at Ivan Stanisich’s north of Kaitaia on 13 July 2015 from 19 May sowing (55 days post sowing)

Composition of trial seed mixes:

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the farmers for the purchase and planting of the various legumes: M Jagger, A & M McCahon, Pokkapu Incorporation, N Brown, I Stanisich, G Cookson.

Also thanks to DairyNZ for their probable funding, plus confirmed co-funders at this stage being: Agricom, Ballance AgriNutrients, Clover Consultancy, Foundation of Arable Research, Hine Rangi Trust, Northland Seed & Supplies Limited.

Any queries regarding this update or the project itself, please contact Consultant Gavin Ussher, cloverconsult@xtra.co.nz or phone Gavin on 09 406 7587.