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Issue 18 / Winter / July 2011
Hi #subname#
Welcome to the July edition of Specialty Seed's SeedData Newsletter.
As I was unable to attend the New Zealand Grasslands Association "Pasture Persistence Symposium" held in May this year so I have spent the last few weeks reading the proceedings as my penance.
The symposium was held to reflect what I and many others believe is one of the most important issues facing our farmer clients today in regards to pasture renovation, namely persistence.
One thing is now a lot clearer to me, which is, how many factors there are working against us in achieving a successful, productive and persistent sow down. Years ago (approximately 25) I used to attend wheat growing competitions designed around helping growers achieve, which in those days was almost an impossibility, a 10 tonne per hectare grain yield. This is now a relatively easy target for most growers with a lot of easy to understand information at their finger tips to help them.
I believe this is the kind approach our industry needs to adopt in achieving increased pasture persistence, as they say "how do you eat an elephant"? Click here to contact us find out the answer to this question..
In this edition we will preview:
New 'Corka Kale' looks promising
This coming season will see a limited release of our new Kale called Corka.
- Highly palatable Intermediate type
- High yield potential: 15-18 tonne DM / ha
- Suitable for all stock types
- Thin stems and a high leaf to stem ratio
- Very good cool winter hardiness
- Prolific Autumn and Winter feed
- Recommended sowing rate: 5 kg / ha
We will have a limited release of Corka Kale for this coming Spring season and welcome any enquiries you may have.
Website Link: Click here to go to the Corka Kale website page .
Contact Link: For any questions or enquiries on Corka Kale please contact us.
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Lucerne in short supply
If you want to plant Lucerne this season, you may need to look sharp and order quickly because seed is short.
A poor seed harvest in Australia combined with very wet conditions leading into harvest in New Zealand does not bode well for supplies.
While we are not in the habit of scaring people for the sake of it; this is a genuine heads up so that our clients are not disappointed.
There is not a lot of seed available ex Australia and with unusually high rainfall prior to and during the harvest in the upper South Island, where most NZ Lucerne seed is grown, local seed yields could be as much as 50% down.
Lucerne Cultivars currently available from Specialty Seeds are:
Icon, Supersonic, Kaituna, Runner, SF Force 4, Stamina 5, Torlesse, Wairau and 54V09.
Contact Link: For any questions or enquiries on any Lucerne cultivars please contact us.
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New Granular Lucerne Innoculant
Over the last few years Specialty Seeds have been searching, in Australia, for Lucerne cultivars suitable for New Zealand conditions.
We released two cultivars:
- Icon a semi winter active type and
- Supersonic which is the only winter active Lucerne available in New Zealand.
During this search for a suitable cultivar we also became aware of a new way of inoculating Lucerne seed at establishment that is very popular with Australian farmers. Granulated innoculants.
Granulated inoculants are popular as they a very simple to use, no mess, precise and ready to use.
Sadly I'm old enough to remember when farmers had to inoculate their Lucerne seed just prior to drilling the inoculate mixed with skim milk.
While technology has changed, mixing seed and innoculating the night before drilling is still a reality for many farmers wishing to establish their Lucerne. It's a time consuming, messy job, and can be hard to get right, but many farmers prefer to buy their Lucerne seed in uncoated form still.
This obviously means that these clients still are required to innoculate their Lucerne seed themselves.
We looked carefully at two different granulated inoculants and have decided to run with "Nodulator". Nodulator is a powerful clay - based and uniform inoculant ready to sow with your Lucerne seed. The dust free granules provide better handling and placement than the other granulated inoculant we evaluated.
Granular Innoculant is super easy to use. Simply mix 6kgs / ha with your bare Lucerne seed at drilling. It is easy to store by just keeping the (25kg) bags in a dry and dark shed.
Nodulator Granular Lucerne innoculant will keep for at least 6 months. We will be recommending Nodulator to our growers this coming season.
Downloads Link: Click here to go to download the Nodulator brochure.
Website Link: Click here to go to the Specialty Seed's Lucerne website page .
Contact Link: For any questions or enquiries on Lucerne please contact us.
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New products from Agriseeds
NZ Agriseeds have two new releases due out for limited commercial release Autumn 2012.
They are a new tetraploid hybrid ryegrass and a new cocksfoot.
- Shogun Tetraploid Hybrid Ryegrass
Shogun is a new tetraploid hybrid ryegrass (50% annual and 50% perennial ryegrass).
Most of you are familiar with NEA2 endophyte that is currently inoculated in their Bealey and Trojan cultivars and the yet to be named endophyte in Shogun although different from NEA2 has come out of this endophyte program.
Shogun is a high yielding tetraploid hybrid with a high overall yield potential particularly performs well over the autumn/winter and spring. Designed to last for between 3 - 4 years in areas of high insect pressure (i.e. the Waikato) and will most likely last longer in areas of lower insect pressure (i.e. Southland).
Shogun is a late flowering type (+ 25 days) and as it's a tetraploid has very good feed quality potential as well.
I personally believe grasses like Shogun innoculated with a suitable endophyte will eventually replace Italian ryegrasses as they will cost around the same to sow, have similar if not better production than Italians and have more persistency which is a very big plus over the persistency of Italians particularly in summer dry areas with high insect pressure.
- Shafin Cocksfoot
I'm a big fan of the new modern cocksfoot's and have been keeping a close eye on them in trials at the different seed companies research farms over the last few years. Some of these are due for release soon and Shafin the new release from Agriseed's is one of them. Plant breeders have been focusing their attention on two main features when selecting new cocksfoot's they are disease resistance and leaf fineness. It's got to the stage where it is difficult to see them much different than perennial ryegrasses.
Shafin is later flowering then Agriseeds current cocksfoot variety Ella and is a finer leaf type. The later flowering trait has two benefits' the first is it retains its leaf quality longer into the spring and also will improve seed production.
The finer leaf trait will make it more compatible when used as a component in pasture seed mixes and less clumpy as the older types.
Shafin has very good year round dry matter production and improved palatabity.
As both of these cultivars are late flowering types they will be late to harvest and therefore won't be available until later in the autumn of 2012. For more info on Shogun and Shafin please contact us.
Contact Link: For any questions or enquiries on any of new products please contact us.
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As always, we hope this issue has been of some value to you. If you have a comment on this newsletter or anything on our website, please feel free to give us a call on our Freephone: 0800 727 8873, send us an email at: mail@specseed.co.nz.
Kind Regards
Stephen Finch & David Percival
Specialty Seeds - New Zealand
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