NEA4 endophyte provides very good animal performance. NEA4 endophyte provides ryegrass staggers free pasture for dairy cows and beef cattle.

 

High animal performance

Ryegrass with NEA4 endophyte has been tested against other endophytes in a worst case scenario as discussed previously, specifically designed to show any animal health issues. Over 10 separate trials, liveweight gain (LWG) of lambs grazing ryegrass with NEA4 has never been significantly different from lambs on AR1 ryegrass (the standard for high LWG).

 

Ryegrass staggers trial

These 10 trials were also designed to cause ryegrass staggers, with pure ryegrass (without clovers), grown to a very high herbage mass over summer then set-stocked for 4-8 weeks, or until staggers on lambs grazing SE become too serious.

Lambs grazing ryegrass with NEA4 endophyte have shown the same level of ryegrass staggers as lambs on AR1 endophyte (lowest stagger risk) in all trials. Results from 2019 are given below, where particularly severe staggers were seen on lambs grazing Standard endophyte.

 

Trial results

 

Ryegrass staggers (RGS) in 2019 Canterbury lamb trials

 

The 2019 year was extremely bad for RGS, with RGS occurring at week 2 and by week 4 was severe in the SE plots.The trial ended early for animal ethics reasons. After 4 weeks no RGS were observed in the NEA4 plots. A small level of background RGS symptoms were seen in AR1 which was not related to alkaloids.