Other Grasses
Click below to see our other grasses:
- Tall Fescue
- Brome Grasses (Pasture Brome / Prairie Grass / Grazing Brome)
- Cocksfoot
- Meadow Fescue
- Phalaris
- Timothy
- Yorkshire Fog
Tall Fescue:
(Sowing Rates: Alone: 22-25 kgs per ha)
Tall Fescue is a perennial grass more tolerant of hot summer, poorly drained soils than perennial ryegrass. Although it will perform best on heavier soil types, provided there is some summer moisture (either rainfall or irrigation) of some sort. Tall fescues also perform well on free draining soil types. Tall Fescue requires different pasture management than ryegrass and this has been its main limitation in NZ. Tall Fescue needs to be grazed at the correct time in spring, often more frequently than ryegrass or otherwise its palatability is lost. Newer cultivars mentioned here are softer leaf types with improved year-round production and are quicker to establish than the older Roa type.
Cultivars:
Brutus: Brutus is a high yielding forage fescue with low endophyte levels. It is one of the latest generations of forage fescues selected for its palatability, cold tolerance and drought tolerance.
Hummer Max P: Hummer is a soft leaved and fine tillered early heading cultivar with seed head emergence starting in late September. Hummer has maintained the productivity and persistence of the early heading types while improving the palatability and grazing management. Not only is Hummer Max P a fine tillered cultivar but it is a sod forming which create dense crowns over time: an important trait of a persistent tall fescue.
Quantica Max P: Quantica is a soft, finely leaved continental tall fescue selected for improved animal palatability and rust resistance. Like Quantum II, Quantica is a deep rooted, robust, productive variety offering more persistence than perennial ryegrass and can tolerate waterlogging, salinity, grass grub, heat, and drought.
Nouga: NOUGA has thrown away the rule book when it comes to tall fescue. With outstanding softness of leaves for ease of grazing management and high digestibility, it’s the tall fescue that thinks its a ryegrass. This combined with all the usual positive benefits of tall fescue make NOUGA a pasture option that’s hard to beat.
Tower Tall Fescue: Tower is a soft and palatable tall fescue, with excellent performance in New Zealand conditions.
Available in Protek or NE
Note: Max P Endophyte: Max P is a novel endophyte for the use in modern tall fescue cultivars. Max P greatly increases tall fescues persistence and production by protecting it from insects. Click here for more information on Endophyte Options.
Brome Grasses:
(Sowing Rates: Alone: 25-30 kgs per ha)
The Brome grass family are best suited to free draining soils with moderate to high fertility. They will not persist on poorly drained soil types. Very palatable with good average quality.
Cultivars:
Atom (Bromus willenowii): Atom is a large leaf prairie grass with a palatable seedhead and high protein content, providing high quality year-round feed as nil endophyte forage. It proves an excellent long season option with strong summer heat tolerance as well as good winter production and is best suited to Rotational Grazing systems.
Bareno (Bromus valdivianus): Bareno pasture brome is suited to summer dry, well drained soils. It is more perennial in nature than prairie grass, tolerates harder grazing than prairie grass and can be rotationally grazed or set stocked.
Gala (Bromus stamineus): Gala grazing brome is the equivalent of perennial ryegrass in the brome family. Gala is a versatile species for use on free-draining soils, in areas with summer-dry conditions. Compared with prairie grass, the dense, fine-tillered growth ensures persistence under harsher climatic and grazing conditions. Farms in the dry eastern regions benefit from the rapid autumn recovery, good winter and early-spring growth, and persistence under close grazing.
Matua (Bromus willdenowii): has been proven to have a large potential, particularly on the lighter dryland sheep farms where severe production decreases caused by poor survival of ryegrass during recent drought have occurred.
Jeronimo: Jeronimo is a highly winter active prairie grass with a broad fit for pasture systems where rotational grazing is used. It is from Seed Force’s extensive perennial grass research and development programme and was bred from a New Zealand selection.
Cocksfoot:
(Sowing Rates: Alone: 5-8 kgs per ha. Mixed: 2-3 kgs per ha)
Are best in well managed grazing systems. Recommended in summer dry situations where they can provide important dry matter during these periods. The newer cultivars are less aggressive and more disease resistant than the older types and are therefore easier to control in the very important spring period.
Cultivars:
Aurus: Aurus is an upright winter active cocksfoot with a parentage that combines Uruguayan and French genetics. This combination offers both strong winter growth and overall total yield. Breeders and agronomists have selected Aurus for a later heading date (+6 days later than Tekapo) with strong disease resistance.
SF Greenly 11: SF Greenly ll cocksfoot is a robust, fine leaved and upright cocksfoot that produces well in a range of environments. Its soft leaves have less tendency to clump than traditional varieties. SF Greenly ll can provide substantial yields of quality forage in environments when other pasture species tend to struggle. New breeding helps ensure palatability and productivity. An ideal companion to any perennial ryegrass pasture to help build resilience (reduce rate of perennial ryegrass to accommodate)
Kainui: A new cocksfoot from the Cropmark Seeds plant breeding programme, Kainui was bred for high yields, good compatibility within pasture mixes, and strong root development for summer dry tolerance.
Kainui has high tiller density, and soft ryegrass-like leaves, with very good disease resistance. It is well suited for inclusion in pasture mixes or as a specialist pasture in summer-dry areas. Latest genetics, NZ bred.
Redefine: is the cocksfoot your pasture has been waiting for. Polite, controlled and co-operative, it plays nicely with other species instead of taking over.
Anyone who wants the benefits of a cocksfoot without the clumpy, aggressive behaviour and clover suppression associated with older varieties. Since Kara was released in 1980, we have made great progress developing finer, more tillered cocksfoot cultivars. Redefine is a big step forward. At over 5000 tillers/m², you can clearly see the difference between it and other cocksfoots.
Savvy: Savvy cocksfoot is a high yielding and very productive cocksfoot. It is characterised not only by its soft leaves, but also its potential to have very long leaves.
Savvy is an indiscriminate seeder which means that under grazing many Savvy plants may not produce any seed head at all. As well as having less seed head than traditional cocksfoot’s. Savvy has exceptionally low aftermath heading (the period of seed head development is very short), therefore it’s relatively easy to manage, particularly with cattle.
Vision: A very high yielding variety with semi-erect to erect growth habit, good winter activity and mid-season flowering. Vision has a finer stem and leaf form than some cocksfoots but is not excessively dense, allowing good compatibility with other grasses and clovers. Vision is the highest performing cocksfoot in the National Forage Variety Trials Summary; and is well suited to rotational grazing or set stocking.
Phalaris:
(Sowing Rates: Mixed: 1-2 kgs per ha)
Grow with vigour during the Autumn, Winter and Spring but is semi – dormant during the summer. This helps increase persistence. They have a well-developed rhizomatous root system which make it very tolerant of grass grub attack. Phalaris must be used as a component of a pasture seed mix to avoid risk of Phalaris staggers.
Cultivar: VNS imported
Timothy:
(Sowing Rates: Alone: 6-8 kgs per ha. Mixed: 2-3 kgs per ha)
Mainly used as an important part of any pasture seed mix where high spring / summer production is required is therefore better suited to areas where summer moisture is assured. Very palatable to all stock types care must be taken to avoid over grazing. Has very high herbage quality features.
Cultivars: Kahu and Imported types.
Yorkshire Fog:
(Sowing Rates: Alone: Alone: 6-8 kgs per ha. Mixed: 2-4 kgs per ha)
Yorkshire Fog tolerates wet, infertile and acidic soil types and because of this has been used for forestry and erosion control and on high country sheep farms. Massey Basyn contains flavanoids and tannins both have been shown to improve stock health when used for stock grazing. Yorkshire Fog has a low dry matter yield, but its young shoots are readily eaten and it is highly digestible.
Cultivars: Imported types
For more information on any of these products please dont hesitate to give us a call here at Specialty Seeds.