Summary

This project has been developed in direct response to these requests for information from farmers, on the best management packages for growing cereal and cereal/legume forage crops for hay and silage production. These requests were made during workshops and field days held as part of the TopFodder Silage program, and subsequent extension/research activities. In particular farmers were seeking information on crop mixtures that
1. could reliably be grown under (variable) rainfed conditions;
2. produce high yields of forage;
3. are of medium to high quality suitable for production feeding, and
4. can be conserved as hay or silage.
The most common questions were about:-
1. Best sowing rates of the two species, and
2. Optimal stage at which to harvest, i.e. yield vs quality, to maximise animal production.
In an attempt to answer these 2 most common questions this project will look at the yield and quality of triticale/pea forage crops harvested at 4 stages of cereal maturity. Tobruk triticale and Morgan and Parafield peas have been chosen as the target species and varieties after discussion with industry.

Program

Export Fodder

Research Organisation

The Crown in right of the State of NSW acting through the Department of Primary Industries

Objective Summary

The objectives of this project are to:
1. Obtain data on time of harvest (maturity) on yield and quality relationships for cereal/pea forage crops.
2. Evaluate the effect of cereal and pea sowing rate on the yield and quality cereal/pea forage crops.
3. Evaluate two diverse pea ideotypes (forage vs semi-leafless) for forage.