Here are some photos of sub clover taken by Doug Avery on ‘Bonavaree’ Farm in Marlborough. Legume–dominant pasture in spring 2016 The photo below shows Fraser Avery standing in high quality legume dominant pasture last spring (1 October 2016). This is ‘Antas’ sub clover which has been allowed to set seed in its first year and … Read more
Want sub clover for your lactating ewes in spring? Plan for it now. For those of you wanting to sow sub clover this autumn, here is some advice to get you started. Why sub clover? Sub clover seed costs about $120-$150/ha plus drilling costs. The sub clover may provide 2-4 t DM/ha in a mixed pasture during spring … Read more
On 29 July 2016 Professor Derrick Moot headed out to the Ashley Dene research farm to look at an experiment being conducted by Masters student Teresa. This experiment is investigating the effects of nine different herbicide treatments on the survival and productivity of five different subterranean clover cultivars established in autumn and spray at one of two different … Read more
Dryland Pastures Research team leader Derrick Moot talks with PhD candidate Rachel Fields about her experiments which are investigating the cause of high phytoestrogen content in lucerne herbage and its impact on ewe ovulation rates when grazed (approx. 5 mins).
In this clip Derrick Moot and Ag Sci Hons student Grace Clouston of the Dryland Pastures Research Team discuss the status of a irrigated lucerne cultivar evaluation that was sown on 21 October 2016 (approx 2 mins).
Hi there, Derrick was told the other day that it has been a while since we put up any new posts (sorry about that!) so on Monday we headed out to the field with some of the postgraduate students working within the Dryland Pastures Research Team. We thought we’d take introduce you to some of … Read more
On 1 February 2016, Dick Lucas ventured out to the MaxAnnuals grazing experiment to investigate the recovery of the dryland cocksfoot pasture established with subterranean and balansa clovers at Ashley Dene, Canterbury. Topics covered include yield, germination of the annual clovers and target populations for high quality spring forage. The potential for a ‘false break’ … Read more
Planning for your autumn sown annual clover based permanent pastures Order early Although it may seem a bit early to some people we thought it timely to put a reminder out for our dryland farmers to get their annual clover seed orders in to their local seed suppliers. Placing your seed orders now (before 1 … Read more
In this, the final video blog in the late autumn field walk series taken in early May, we look at the state of the fourth treatment in our ‘MaxAnnuals’ Experiment at Ashley Dene, Canterbury (approx. 4 mins). This pasture was established with the following dryland pasture mix in autumn 2013:10 kg/ha ‘Ultra Enhanced’ perennial ryegrass … Read more
In this video we look at the third of the dryland pasture mixes which forms part of our grass/clover experiment at Ashley Dene, Canterbury. (approx. 6 mins)This pasture was established with:2 kg/ha ‘Greenly’ cocksfoot (orchardgrass; Dactylis glomerata)10 kg/ha subterranean clover (5 kg/ha ‘Denmark’ plus 5 kg/ha ‘Rosabrook’; Trifolium subterraneum)0.5 kg/ha ‘Tonic’ plantain (Plantago lanceolata)0.5 kg/ha … Read more