Better Farming – September 2016

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44 Farm News First > Better Farming September 2016
by PAT LYNCH
CROPS:THELYNCHFILE
W e have issues with forage
production in Ontario.
Corn and wheat yields
continue to increase yearly. But forage
yields have not changed much.
Well that is all changing. The use
of new breeding techniques, applica-
tion of fungicides and employment of
better fertility strategies increased
yields in corn and wheat. The adop-
tion of these approaches will increase
forage yields too.
It is hard to change alfalfa with
standard breeding techniques partial-
ly because alfalfa has four sets of
chromosomes. Factors such as yield
are affected by many genes on the
different sets of chromosomes. So
now breeders are resorting to geneti-
cally modifying alfalfa. They have
done many different things. The most
exciting is changing the genes that
affect lignin. The end result is an
alfalfa that is more digestible and
retains digestible protein longer. This
means you can leave alfalfa to mature
to 1/10th bloom or later and not lose
quality. You get the higher yield of
more mature alfalfa but retain feed
quality. This development equates to
big savings in harvesting, which costs
about $75 per 100 acres. Yield that
you would normally get in four cuts
you can get in three. Yield that you
would get in three cuts you will be
able to get in two cuts. Maintaining
yields while reducing the number of
harvests results in a direct saving to
the producer.
Roundup Ready alfalfa has been
planted for a number of years in the
United States. In 2016 Roundup
Ready alfalfa was planted in Ontario.
The introduction of Roundup Ready
alfalfa means you can control trou-
blesome weeds like chickweed
without using a cover crop. After you
spray off chickweed you can seed
grasses. Another advantage of Round-
up Ready alfalfa is that when the
stand starts to thin out you can spray
Roundup to control weeds then seed
grasses.
The genes for lower lignin, higher
protein and digestibility will only be
sold with the Roundup Ready gene.
There are questions as to how to
kill Roundup Ready alfalfa. The
answer is the same way we kill alfalfa
now. Use dicamba with Roundup
Companies set their sights on forages
Recent strides in private forage research and management products will have significant impact
on crop yields.
The size of forage equipment and speed of operation has greatly changed.