Glenn Here we are with Lara from marketing.

 

Lara Hey, guys. How are you going?

 

Allister  Good. Lara. Thanks.

 

Lara We've got a couple of questions here. One from Sally. What does a future farm system look like with reduced cropping areas being regulations and or more extreme weather patterns?

 

Allister Again, a very difficult question because there's so many parts to it. You know, when I listen to that, I partially think dairy farming. But it doesn't really ask what farming system. So let's just use dairy. I think the pressure point sits with the fact that if we move away from crops, it naturally makes people have to have more area, particularly for that wintering phase, which may not be still on the primary platform, so it will potentially increase debt in the dairy sector because people would either need to purchase more land so they can put the same number of cows over a bigger platform of grass for winter, or they have to invest in a capital infrastructure like a shed. So those two things bring debt loading to a really efficient dairy system. And I probably would suggest that if something could emerge in this country where you could have, an integrated business model, where you've got another business sitting inside a dairy farm and it made sense. That would probably be awesome. But I'm still waiting for someone to give me an answer on that themselves. Because if you know, it's people like ourselves that help people implement those answers, and the issue is at the moment, in my humble opinion, it's easy to have the great question. No one's giving really comfortable answers of what are the options in real terms.

 

Glenn I think it's pretty clear that if the crop comes out or crop area is limited, the cost of wintering is going to go up because the alternatives are more expensive and that's why crop is so very useful. Um, I think the other thing, in terms of the weather events and some of the challenges that might be coming with us, I think farming systems are going to have to be more adaptable and more resilient. And so that might mean that when we're doing the numbers around what we should do in a situation, we might be using models to predict what prices are and some of the crops we should be putting in, we'll need to factor in the fact that we don't know and understand what could be coming at us. So we need to be more resilient. We need to have more Plan B's and C's and because there's a lot of uncertainty. And so I see the diversification in terms of what those income streams are, diversification in terms of what we're growing on farm and diversification in terms of some of the management style that are going to be much more diverse and therefore more complex to run. So in terms of doing that, we are going to have to rely on some technology to help us. We're going to have to be very good at changing quickly and recognising when we need to change. So forecasting and in being able to get animals off quickly or being able to, you know, use crops in 2 or 3 different ways. So I think we're going to become a whole lot more flexible in terms of remaining more resilient when we don't understand what's coming at us.

 

Allister Cool.

 

Lara Nice. Another question from Nick here. He is curious about what is your favourite farming area in the country?

 

Allister Well, I've got one.

 

Glenn You go first.

 

Allister Yeah, West Otago. Tapanui in the greater area around there, I've got very fond memories of constantly seeing it at its best in the summertime. It's a great spot. In the sort of the western side of the Blue Mountains, just a beautiful landscape.

 

Glenn Well, for me, North Canterbury, sort of born and bred there. There's a spot where I can look up at the hills that surround Oxford. And it's one of those things where when I fly in when I'm coming home from a travel or when I'm driving across Canterbury plains it's always. There's actually a spur that I always look for so it's actually my favourite farming area as it's home base.

 

Allister Yeah.

 

Lara Oh cool, epic. Well, if you guys have some questions, please feel free to email them through to info@agricom.co.nz or hit us up on our Facebook and Instagram pages Agricomnz. Thank you. 

 

Glenn I can tell that you've just woken up from a two hour nap because you're looking pretty sharp.

 

Allister But thanks, Juddy.

 

Glenn What do we want to talk about today?

 

Allister Glenn, we're going to talk about alternative grass species. It's in response to a question from Alistair from Cambridge. I think it was up in the Waikato asking after prairie grass. And so what we thought we'd do is would mash that in with all the other grasses that we use in New Zealand outside our mainstream grasses. So if you don't mind the way we might handle it, is we might dive into our big grasses and then highlight what are the other grasses they get used in. And then you can tease out our experiences with that over time, I would suggest. Does that sound like a plan?

 

Glenn That sounds like a plan. We're talking about, some of the grass species that aren't used commonly and widely in New Zealand, but do have a place and I guess what we're going to try and get to describe from an agronomic point of view where their place is but knowing that it's not all about agronomy and we've got to have some good animal system stuff in there that will then try and look at how we'd fit them into an animal system.

 

Allister That's right.

 

Glenn Excellent. Let's go for our first alternate grass or grass other than our ryegrasses.

 

Allister And that's what I think I would say first is, you know, like in New Zealand by far the greatest grass species or group of grasses that we use are the ryegrasses, the loliums. And that's perennial, hybrid, Italian and annual ryegrass, by far the biggest. There's a huge gulf between that and any other species we use. And if we look at the next tier down, which for some people they describe them as secondary grasses already, cocksfoot and tall fescue would sit in that place in the New Zealand farming system. So then you get to what other grasses are in our landscape that we use.

 

Glenn And just to give some clarity, actually we've done a podcast on those other species.

 

Allister So this is just filling in the gaps of what else. And again, answering the question about prairie grass. And that's a really nice place to kick off. So probably one of the more significant volumes of grass alternate grasses we use in New Zealand is the brome species. This is where you could probably get into a bit of trouble, but I'm going to try and pronounce the Latin names of these grasses.

 

Glenn This is going to be great.

 

Allister So some of our audiences will not know them by their common names in the New Zealand landscape, but you'll recognise them, significantly in South America and, different parts of the world which use the species. But we predominantly use three brome grasses in New Zealand. And I would describe it, quite simply as that there is grass that replicates or looks very, very similar to an Italian ryegrass. There's a grass that looks very similar and functions very similar to hybrid ryegrasses. And then there is a brome grass that is actually very much more similar to a very traditional, a tough, perennial ryegrass. So we'll start with a start where we're talking about prairie grass which is bromus willdenowii.

 

Glenn Well, done.

 

Allister Which I think we will sit with that.

 

Glenn That sounds like a suburb in Dunedin.

 

Allister Almost with a wee musical tinge to the end of that. The point being prairie grasses.

 

Glenn Is at the perennial end?

 

Allister No, that's the Italian end. That's the shorter term end, upright, broad, open, quite active in both winter and summer. To be fair, we describe it as having a pretty consistent growth curve. That's not right, because all grasses grow more in spring, but it never really drops away in summer. And it continues to grow in moderately dry conditions through summer and autumn. And it has quite significant winter growth and not dissimilar to an Italian. And so, to be fair, it's probably a summer active Italian, coming from a different species perspective. But like all the bromes this particular one has a very big seed. The seed doesn't reflect the amount of energy it's got to actually become a plant out of that seed. The seed is just a big husk, which we can't get rid of. So we've got to be very careful with this plant, because when you see the size of its seed, one, you've got to watch how much you sow because you need to sow a bit more because the seed is so large. But the weakness is people think it looks like an oat. So you punch it in the ground and it doesn't come up.

 

Glenn Now that makes sense to me, that is why a 25 kilogram bag of prairie grass seed looks enormous.

 

Allister Well, to be fair, it's not as bad as cocksfoot but to be quite frank. But the point being, there's very few, relatively speaking, there's only about 30 to 40% of the amount of seed in a 25 kg bag of prairie grass as an Italian ryegrass.

 

Glenn Yes.

 

Allister Because it's so much bigger. Again, sowing rate for the prairie grass is quite a big deal. But more importantly, as a farm system and delivering its perspective, it still needs to be delivered at about one centimeter to 1.5 cm a depth, just because the seed looks big. The energy in that seed is actually no different from any other grass. And if you bury it, it won't come up.

 

Glenn So what's the sowing rate? If you're putting in, prairie grass and clover mix, for example, what sort of sowing rate would sow prairie grass at?

 

Allister I'll look, you know, because it's quite a big plant. What does grow fills out. And in many of our systems we use prairie grass. And we actually quite like the openness. So sometimes having these is not a bad thing. And I'll explain a couple of other traits of it. That means having a little bit less than you know, the theoretical sowing rate is not a problem. However, if you wanted to really compete for outright yield with this species at over 30kg per hectare is what you would be sowing. So from that perspective very rarely see that. It is likely to max out at 25 kg's a hectare as a part of the mixture, and predominantly it sits at anywhere between maybe four kilograms right through to about 16 kg in a pasture mixture. Will delve into that a little bit more shortly. But the key to this species, this is the bromus species, but particularly the prairie grass represents this is that they, are a grass of free draining, quite light and fertile soils. So prairie grass particularly likes good phosphate, which many grasses. The phosphates, not about the grass. It's about the legumes that, you may want a new mixture. You're not elevating your phosphate for grass. Although phosphate helps with the root development and structures like that, it's not a massive necessity. You want good PH's because you don't want other toxic issues emerging like aluminum and stuff like that, and particularly with prairie grass. But the point being is that, prairie grass is a very big, productive plant, and it seems to elevate its resilience quite dramatically in the presence of high phosphate levels. That's one of the grasses, I would suggest that is quite linked to, high phosphate and is quite heavily linked to longevity and natural seedling recruitment, which comes back to the sowing rate. One reason you can get away with slightly lower sowing rates, with prairie grass it's a very free seeding species it starts seeding at the end of first month of spring. And that doesn't stop seeding to the middle of autumn. So it produces seedhead literally the whole calendar year.

 

Glenn So, just picking up on it from an animal performance point of view. Tell me a little bit about the palatability of the seed is that a really big issue in terms of grazing?

 

Allister Yes. Well, we have discussed that with other species like continental tall fescue where seedhead is quite regularly a limitation how I think the locations that prairie grasses used and the quantities it's used in means that the seedhead is not an overwhelming problem. But most importantly, cattle particularly find it highly palatable. So it's something that is actively grazed out in a cattle grazing event. Sheep can get a little bit more selective, but they will still take the seedhead. Now the point being with all species stem is stem. Just because they want to eat it doesn't mean it will make them grow. It will fill them up, it might give them a bigger gut fill. But as you and I both know that it's still stem. It's still lignifying plant parts. So, point being is that, it can be managed more easily than virtually every other grass we have when it goes to seed. However, don't believe that enhances your animal performance.

 

Glenn  And I think that's a really important point there. If you were looking at its growth habit and when you're going to get the most production out of this, knowing that you're in free draining soils. When is its real power in terms of producing a lot of drymatter.

 

Allister Well, for me, it's two very distinct time frames. It's spring, full stop. You need to drive your production system. If you're coming out of a cold winter landscape, you need spring to be very, very early and very powerful. However, it's probably that autumn accumulation and winter cover in a temperate landscape and even some of our colder environments, you know, first, second and even third year prairie grass can actually have a surprising bulk going into the winter, which, you know, for cattle systems is really important.

 

Glenn So a little bit, what we're saying a little bit on the shoulders of the season, probably you're going to get some benefits, particularly in free draining situations. If you were in areas that, periodically flood are you likely to be able to hold this plant for longer periods?

 

Allister No not in its perennial state, but it doesn't mean to say a whole lot of seed didn't just wash in from the literally the sides of your rivers. So it likes free draining loams, so it does, populate free draining silty areas for example. And what you tend to find is after floods, prairie grass is a coloniser. Assuming the fertility is there. If the fertility is not there, it's actually quite a small plant with lots of seedheads. If the fertility is there, it's a big leafy plant.

 

Glenn And what is its clover compatibility like?

 

Allister Is very upright and open, so it's actually highly compatible. So if I dive into some of the systems that would be used and like, for example, it doesn't like intense set stocking. It doesn't like intense rotations where you're coming back too fast. You make it more and more open and make the plant weaker and weaker with time, so it sits out at about a 30 day rotation. And it loves free draining soils and loves good fertility within reason. So it is a natural to be stitched into lucerne stands that are just finishing. So for the last 2 or 3 years of a lucerne stand where you might want to transition from a lucerne dominant situation into a grazing situation. Adding prairie grass to that role is actually one of its really top jobs. If I was then to just discuss how you might utilise it on again, like free draining soils of 600 mil to 900 mil rainfall. Another great set of species that fit with prairie grass beautifully are literally sowing it with lucerne, red clover, chicory, plantain probably something like a medium to large white clover. And they all function really well together in a finishing system. So quite ideal for some of the deer finishing systems in the spring. Definitely all classes of cattle. And you could definitely run a lamb program around that, but you're probably looking to bring cattle in as part of that rotation as well.

 

Glenn My impression is that we have the species in its, not critical, but you've seen the outcomes are so much better when you have cattle in that system.

 

Allister Absolutely.

 

Glenn Okay, so now we've talked about that down that end of the Italian species?

 

Allister A couple of things in context from a New Zealand perspective and just for Alastair up north particularly discussing the prairie grass. One of the weaknesses of prairie grass up north is that it is vulnerable to a pasture pest called Hessian fly. And that is predominantly found in the north of New Zealand. It doesn't particularly have any endophytes associated with it. So it has the chance to be still eaten by things like African black beetle, native grass grub and things like that. So, although resilient, in that sort of longer rotation with cattle, particularly in fertile landscapes, it still has not a huge amount of protection. If there's any sort of protection that prairie grass actually has it's through natural reseeding. However, you know, when we sell prairie grass seed in New Zealand, we have it fungicide treated because a very, very natural disease of prairie grasses is head smut. And so when you get head smut in nature, you literally aren't producing fertile seed. So that's a really big deal. And the only other thing I would say with prairie grass that I see as a threat in some of the longer pasture rotations in autumn safe grazing environments, is that if you're in that sort of autumnal, with a bit of moisture, cooling down, the risk of getting ergot is quite important. So head smut is a very black, sooty, substance that is colonising where the seed should be. Ergot is literally a solid, fruiting body that looks exactly excuse my language, but exactly like rat shit, colonising exactly where a seed would be. Now, ergot is a real risk to animal health and wellbeing. As you have discussed in passing full of ergavaline products and, they are vascular constrictors. So at high levels they can cause some quite harm to stressed animals in the cold or the heat.

 

Glenn Yeah, certainly. Periodically, you know, given the environment, those do pop up from time to time, particularly in wet warm environments. So, take that on board.

 

Allister And so deferring feed, for example, into winter. Sometimes you got to actually do think of unintentional consequences. Prairie grass is a tick because it can be done and it does it well. But if it's carrying lots and lots of seed head, you only need one bad autumn for some of that crop, and some of that deferred pasture may actually not be usable easily without harming animals. So yeah, it is something that I would say is a low risk. But when it happens it is very, very difficult to deal with.

 

Glenn Yes. And probably we get to that point the recommendation is likely to be that you can silage that. The difficulty is that you don't do anything to the ergot. The ergot is still intact. It's just that you're feeding it out in smaller amounts.

 

Allister Dilute it down.

 

Glenn And therefore you can get away with it. But it still creates a real problem. You don't get too many exits out of it.

 

Allister You may have to top it early, which gives up valuable volume.

 

Glenn All right. So now we've talked about the Italian end of it. Let's talk about what you'd class is more the hybrid brome.

 

Allister In New Zealand we class this category as pasture brome. It is bromus valdivianus this brome is much more densely tillered style of plant. It's still bigger than a traditional ryegrass, but not as big as an Italian. So it sits in between, interestingly enough, it is not as winter active as a prairie grass. The varieties we have here in New Zealand, the variety we have here in New Zealand, I would also describe has been quite late flowering. For me personally, that means it's slightly better tolerant to a slightly higher rainfall. All of these bromes are very tolerant to summer conditions. In general terms, if the fertility is good enough and the pasture brome I see is quite a really highly functional grass in some of our more continental landscapes where we can be cold in winter where you are not expecting a huge amount of growth. But you can pick up some late moisture in spring on free draining light soils. And so it fits quite strongly in that space. For me, I see that as a very strong complementary grass with, red clover and white clover and possibly subterranean clover.

 

Glenn And what sort of animal system would you be looking at? Is this still a finishing feed?

 

Allister Yeah, no, I'll definitely be seeing it as quite a wide diversity. This is still a cattle feed. And when it goes to seed, it's actually quite an intense seeder at the start of the first month of summer. It's very late so it throws a lot of stem and seedhead there. Being a brome, it's relatively palatable. But it's got a longer, taller seedhead as well. So the thing is it still fits within a cattle system. But this is a grass I'd be very happy for deer and sheep to be eating quite easily and not damaging it. Much more tolerant to periods of set stocking, for example.

 

Glenn Thank you.

 

Allister From there, I think we should carry on down because this next one as we've had a quite a history with it, which is the grazing brome, which is the perennial end of the spectrum. This is a species that literally requires a rainfall zone under 800mm. At about 800mm you do see it actually, ecologically come outside its zone and you tend to find it dies. So the areas that we've been involved with Bromus stamineus is in very, very light draining soils of about 550 mills to about 750 mils. Very light country, country that you really only get a period of growth at the end of autumn and really at the start of spring. Now, as I say, pasture brome, prairie grass, flowers all the time. Pasture brome tends to flower quite late. Grazing brome flowers really early and then stops because it's a perennial.

 

Glenn Yep.

 

Allister So that's late September, and it's a very small plant and it's really genuinely designed for quite intense stocking. So this is where you have sheep and you're just stocking it constantly. In New Zealand I would say about 75% of the natural landscape that grazing brome would have been used on historically, is now growing grapes.

 

Glenn Right. So it's that type of country.

 

Allister Absolutely. So we're talking Marlborough, we're talking North Canterbury, a prime grape growing country in North Canterbury are all historic places where grazing brome was used with half breed sheep, Merinos, Corriedale sheep breeds and, you know, quite a semi-arid landscape.

 

Glenn And so given the fact that it is flowering early in the season, does that indicate that from a stage of growth point of view, that you're likely to get quite a lot early spring?

 

Allister Yes, and slightly more in winter. So it's more winter active than a pasture brome is more active at the end of autumn, winter and early spring, recognising it's job in life really for the rest of the years to tolerate what's thrown at it. Of all the grass species I've seen in that situation, it's one of the most amazing true semi-arid grass species that I've actually seen it green up, literally, if an irrigator has been taken across it in a completely brown landscape, I've literally within 24 hours seen it trigger a regrowth reaction. And now typically that's a really bad thing for a plant that's trying to survive summer. However, this species seems to be so tolerant to that because it greens up, could be utilised and then goes back into a brown state and into survival mode. But the speed that it greens up is just phenomenal. And I've never seen anything quite like it. Those brome species for me are really important. I'll just leave a take home message with them. Please be aware they do have limits on their rainfall zones for their natural performance, and I would suggest they all benefit from free draining soils. Yes, they may be periodically able to grow in slightly higher rainfall wet areas, but you will not, receive their full potential in those landscapes. They will die faster. Or rely on re seeding to be perennial.

 

Glenn And probably the competition from other grasses that are more successful in that situation.

 

Allister Absolutely so now we move into a group of grasses that are used, but, let's just say that are more components of mixtures. But the pasture brome and the grazing brome tend to be a primary component. Prairie grass can be a primary component or a small part of a mixture. I would probably focus on two continental grasses. One of them is meadow fescue. And we have touched on this when we discuss tall fescue and meadow fescue is going to have a significant future in the New Zealand landscape for mixing with tall fescue to improve pasture management. And combined with its novel endophytes or its natural endophytes provide a broader alkaloid profile into a fescue pasture. So meadow fescue we're talking about is festuca pratensis which is technically, continental grass. And the reality for us as it grows has a very low growth point through late autumn to literally the first month of spring. So for us, that's actually quite dormant. As I say, we value this grass at this moment at Agricom particularly because we are utilising it with the variety Oakdon in pasture mixes with our current continental fescue portfolio. So we're using meadow fescue with tall fescue to improve the pasture management, because the meadow fescue is highly palatable. So that's been its primary use. And I would say it's a very niche product at this moment. But I think it's finding a place in life in the New Zealand pastural system.

 

Glenn And I think we can't underestimate or we shouldn't understate how big a difference that mixing has actually created.

 

Allister You’re living that at Marshdale at the moment, that's three years old.

 

Glenn That's three years old and we can still say the line in an open paddock where we've got continued improved grazing. And I guess the question I've got is will that actually reduce the longevity of the plant in that because it's being more well grazed on a number of different occasions. And I guess that's the lasting question that I have in terms of does it make controlling tall fescue easy. I would say undoubtedly it does.

 

Allister Yeah. So we're very lucky, our colleagues in Australia, for example. The meadow fescue is a soft species and in a hard environment a soft species is a soft species. Which basically means it just doesn't last or doesn't survive and may not even survive one summer in Australia. Admittley having its endophyte present is the difference between surviving one summer in New Zealand as well. So it is not a very perennial species if it doesn't have its endophyte, it will literally just drop dead.

 

Glenn And so just unpacking that endophyte. It's one of these ones that have got, significant amounts of lolines that are circulating the roots. And this is likely to infer at least some protection against our root feeders.

 

Allister Absolutely. And, you know, it's no doubt about it that lolines are doing a lot of different things with this plant. So like as I say, this would be what I describe as a very niche grass species in the history of New Zealand. I think it has never really completely naturalised here, but I don't think we understood endophyte when it first came into the New Zealand and the 50s and 60s and never naturalised. But I also now believe categorically we never understood endophyte until the start of the 80s. And this plant is nothing special and has no perennialty of significance if it doesn't have its endophyte.

 

Glenn Yes and so it is not a grass you would sow by itself?

 

Allister Uh, for me, first things first, we sow very few monocultures in New Zealand that word gets bandied around a lot, but the only monocultures in our pastoral systems that we sell. So as some of the annuals which we're using to clean up weeds between cropping rotations, I would never sow a perennial like species without a number of other species. Which is including, in this case, red clover. So the only place I would use it as a primary grass in a mixture is as, where I'm worried about, red clover not surviving because of insect pressure, particularly native grass grub.  So these are the scarab underground feeders and having a grass species, like meadow fescue, which is not aggressive either, allowing red clover to fulfil all its productive potential, for lamb finishing and silaging, you know in those sort of, systems that we run, I would suggest meadow fescue may very well provide the sustainability of that red clover for as long as Relish will last. Using our grazing type as an example, there's every chance they might last five six years if the grass is there to both keep out the weeds, utilise some free nutrient but also keep out the bugs.

 

Glenn Yeah.

 

Allister Yeah. So, moving into another continental, grass, which has quite a lot of world history is Timothy, which is phleum pratense Timothy is another continental grass, again, a very dormant phase, very close to five months where it's not actually growing to any great extent. And then the New Zealand system that is only got a very limited amount of areas where that's beneficial. However, Timothy is one of those grasses that has a huge amount of seed. It's very, very small. So putting a small amount into a mixture is a really positive thing. And I look at Timothy in a pasture mixture as a filler. It's a positive pasture species that fills the gap of what we naturally colonise by things like poa annua small weed grasses and other things. So I look at putting Timothy in a mix as something that one adds a bit of diversity for stock acceptance, particularly sheep. But the reality for me is it's a second or tertiary sort of grass species that's a gap filler. You get a lot of seed for just a kilogram of seed. It's almost like no harm, no foul. It is actually possibly offering more. But it's actually quite a small component and it's definitely only filling gaps.

 

Glenn So the one thing that I always recognise about Timothy and it's one I always remember, it's one of the few things I remember about Timothy is the fact that flowers really late.

 

Allister Really late, so pretty much, in the New Zealand system, it's pretty much around our middle of summer, the end of the first month of summer, you will be driving around the countryside and on the roadside there will be, grass with a very distinctive cigarette like, almost the length of your middle finger, and shaped like a cigarette seedhead. And so anywhere between the middle of summer to the first, second month of summer, which is really, really late from a species perspective, there's very few grasses that are just starting to go to full seedhead at that point. So that also highlights the sort of landscapes that it has evolved in. And the fact that I've talked about it being on the roadside also highlights it likes more lax environments. I will mention some of its special powers as far as where it does fit, it does fit in the high value hay production systems for the horse industry. This is a species that can regularly be cut for some very, very high quality hay and is highly sought after from Southeast Asian racing environments. Japan. And traded it out into those landscapes in containers. Huge amounts of that actually gets traded. What's its special power when it comes to the hay types scenario? Well, one of the things is that the stems, while maintaining the level of drymatter that you require to make hay successfully without burning down the ship, stay green. And so for such a low quality component, which, you know, stemy hay is quite a low quality component, Timothy maintains a surprisingly high level of colour, high level of green. And, that creates this very high quality hay and for horses with no secondary plant compounds that are negative. It fits in as a premium horse hay product. So that would be one of its biggest revivals in our world, which is the tightly packed bales that are exported around the world. And so it's a pretty professional system. And the last two grasses to cover off for us, for me personally, this grass is associated with quite extreme landscape change. On average, New Zealand stretches predominantly in a temperate zone, but in the low rainfall eastern side of New Zealand, you describe us at times as, almost semi-arid, i.e we're getting rain falls down around 550 to 650 mils, and have water deficits for about four months of the year. Hence where, you know, the Canterbury Plains is quite an irrigated landscape. Then you go to the top of the North Island of New Zealand and you are in a latitude that's not miles off Sydney in Australia. So you're looking at nudging on the subtropical zones, basically. And so we go from about 200 km ish south of Tasmania in Australia to about Sydney is the length of New Zealand and the ranges of climates. So if we start at the top and we start working your way in what you'll have noticed by my statement of being about the latitude that, for example, Sydney in Australia is we are in an oceanic subtropical zone and Kikuyu is definitely part of the northern, very northern part of the New Zealand, pastoral landscape. And to be quite frank, it's starting to move a little bit too. So there'll be many, many listeners, from outside New Zealand that would be far more familiar with Kikuyu. And on average it's a grass that fits into cattle systems a lot more than sheep systems. It requires a lot of management to get the best out of it in a dairy system, particularly, in the subtropical dairy environments, you tend to find it requires good grazing management, good nitrogen use. And these things are really important. But it is a very perennial grass in the system that can be very, very useful from getting from late spring through to early to mid autumn. But then you tend to find Kikuyu creates a big chasm of productivity as you come out of that autumn, early autumn growth phase before you can get your temperate grass systems re-established and re-firing up basically. So in the New Zealand system at the moment, we're still running a very, very much a hybrid, system where we can almost get perennial ryegrass to be useful. And if we can, we do. But it's awfully hard to keep Kikuyu out of those landscapes, and therefore you tend to revert to an undersowing or stitching process of where you're coming into your Kikuyu landscape with Italian or annual ryegrass and then transitioning through into a temperate annual ryegrasses back into Kikuyu the following summer. So we have pretty much following what most producers around the world would do with Kikuyu in those landscapes. But at the moment we can still do a bit of perennial ryegrass, we can still do some tall fescue, and you really only go to Kikuyu on a country that you can't stop it. So does that sort of cover that one? Have you had any experience with it?

 

Glenn Yeah, I think from the Kikuyu situation, I think the critical thing is that as you say, if our ryegrasses are running out and Kikuyu is invading or becoming dominant, I think that demonstrates that it is quite at home in that environment. And I think there's two options. Either you try and do things to keep it out and that is you have strong, perennial ryegrass, for example, or tall fescue in those systems or what you do is you use it, and you manage it in and fill in that, as you say, that chasm that occurs over that, cooler period. And so, I think the way if we're in a situation where, Kikuyu is going to be part of your system, you come up with a forage system that takes advantage of trying to manage that and manage the quality in that, but also be able to capture some of the benefits of other species, as you put that into that situation.

 

Allister A really good example again, in the Northland landscape would be Kikuyu summer pastures. One of the strategies around that would be running both either turnips or chicory, for example, was a complementary summer crop where you've got the really highly digestible feed the protein sources coming from your cropping system, where you're coming to the fiber in the bulk, of the Kikuyu to be a filler basically. Or moderate quality filler.

 

Glenn To hold that stocking rate.

 

Allister Yeah, correct of those lactating cows. And you're probably looking at a bit of supplement sort of to get them through to where you want them to be. The last species is Phalaris. I always smile at this because I have had a little bit of history with our plant breeder, Dr. Alan Stewart with phalaris arundinacea which is swamp phalaris. And it always makes me smile when the traditional phalaris used in the Australian landscape is phalaris aquatica. So we are talking about the traditional phalaris used in the arid and semi-arid landscapes of Australia particularly where it's one of the more perennial species they work with. Its role in New Zealand is very minor. We have had a long history of it within Agricom. We've had a bit of personal history with it doing some studies at Lincoln University and seeing some of the negative things that can occur if you grazing in the autumn wrong. It's a very perennial species, really massive root mass, in it's steady state. It is quite a crown and very, very deep root structure but I must emphasise in the New Zealand system, it hasn't naturalised widely around New Zealand. The places that you may yet see phalaris having naturalised again, is in the roadsides but not in the paddocks. And when you are driving around the landscape and you're paying a little bit of attention to the ecology of the world, you know, that should ring bells straight away. If something can naturalise on a roadside but not move into the paddock, you have to ask yourself why isn't it crossing the fence and moving into the paddock? And quite regularly, it is because our intensity in the New Zealand, our expectation of grazing, our number of grazings, our intensity, it is just a little bit of a different level because we are an even if we think we've got a hard because of a dry phase or whatever, we are still a quite a soft country, relatively speaking. So it is definitely, pasture species of a more far less intense grazing practices. You attempt to build up more mass, you tend to use it for longer periods and then give big breaks, all of these things that aren't always an obvious management structure in the New Zealand system. Some pretty strong characteristics associated with a tolerance of insects and bugs. And the thing that I just can't shake off is that that has got alkaloids that can create sudden death syndrome and stagger events that are quite destructive. My experience with the staggers is that eventually those same animals die at a later date. So a little bit of that is to do with cobalt deficiencies in the New Zealand landscape and combined with the alkaloids of early autumn regrowth. However, like I say I always get concerned because you start off by putting a little bit in, but you don't know where you'll be in six years or eight years and you don't know. To date, I've never seen it naturalise. And so that should still make you start to ask the question, is it the amazing perennial species, you know, and in the areas that it just doesn't spread and naturalise because it does seed prolifically and birds do move it around.

 

Glenn Yeah. My impression of this is it's probably not a natural New Zealander in our environment, and therefore putting it in I think that's why it's not moving into areas because we just don't have those. I can't think of too many environments that I'd stick it into. And I'm probably less likely to nominate any animal systems where I can see a huge benefit for this.

 

Allister Yeah. I think cattle systems work very well because often in the spring it does get away and designed to get away so it can build up a mass. Cattle systems with phalaris fit quite well. Sometimes it's the extensive sheep grazing that can literally graze it out with long term management. And that's where grazing tolerance types coming out of the Australian programmes. But on the scale of things, like I say, it's certainly a backbone to perenniality in Australia. But as you've also said, you know, it's still got to compete with other existing species for space in this landscape. It also has to compete with the productivity of those species, which increases the numbers of grazing and the intensity of grazings. So those things all do add up. I've definitely experienced a few people that have harnessed it and utilised in a few places, but, I still would say it's in this topic because it's not obvious that it's better than some of the things we've already got.

 

Glenn So that's been a really interesting traverse, actually, through a number of different grass species. We kind of love them together because they are what we call the alternative grasses. But I think what you've demonstrated is that they do have quite different characteristics and therefore quite different ranges in terms of where you would sow them. And some quite different jobs in animal systems. So I think that's been really useful because sometimes we just lump them all together. And the danger is that we just think of them as the same. And they're actually quite different. So that's been really useful.

 

Allister Yeah thanks Juddy, and that's the point it is actually one of these things about the phase we're going through where diversity is, you know, an attractive discussion. However, ecology is also a very important discussion because I've mentioned you driving around and looking what's there. I mentioned seeing things on roadsides that are not in paddocks. You know, all of these things are describing the ecological niches and fits of these things. So going to chuck bromes at 1200 mil rainfall zones, hot, humid environments on clay downs. The ecology would say you can do whatever you like, but the plant isn't happy with what you've just done to us. And so my point being is that you can do whatever you like with mixtures, but there are a set species fits and the reality is you can make as many mixes as you like, but it's ordained to what's going to end up happening because of where they come from, where they evolved. And much of that is quite known.

 

Glenn And I'd also throw in there and grazing management. I think that very diverse pasture that we've been dealing with where there's been a number, 28 different species that's been very temporary for that very reason. The ecology says that actually there are some grasses in here that can't compete and will drop out of that mixture. And the successful ones are the ones that have evolved in this type of environment and can cope with the grazing management that we throw at it. 

 

Allister 100% and out of interest there's about four of them, out of 28, that can cope with a style of management you have employed in that project. And that's the point is not everything likes one recipe. And once you create your recipe, you define your future.

 

Glenn Yeah. And so I think it's really important then to look at what you've got left. Because for me, the other things, whether we're from a perennial point of view, they've got the best chances of being productive in that environment.

 

Allister And probably just to sum it up, is that these species are very useful in the New Zealand landscape. We do appreciate them, and we support these species in our portfolio as well. So we've always valued the majority of these species. So the point really is that there is a place we love working with them when it offers our farming community value. We definitely do not take them to people that don't need them or it doesn't fit them. Understanding their nature, comprehending their functionality, and effectively harnessing their potential is crucial to optimising their performance and ensuring they thrive in your environment.

 

Glenn Well, it's been good a good chat Allister. I think we've covered a lot of ground there. But time to draw that to a close. I've got to shoot out and I pick up the mail, so we'll talk to you soon.

 

Allister See you. Juddy.

 

Glenn Bye.