Sow the right chicory this spring, and even if the season turns dry later, you’ll still be able give your cows leafy, delicious summer grazing. Plus you’ll save thousands on palm kernel, with less worry about volatile prices. 

 

It’s all to do with fast establishment, high yield and a deep tap root that keeps 501 Chicory lush and green when ryegrass turns brown.

 

Your cows will thank you, and you’ll sleep better at night, knowing home-grown feed is much cheaper than truckloads of supplement.

 

Irresistible eating

 

Cows love 501 Chicory – it’s tasty and easy to eat, and good for them, too. Energy-rich, full of protein, and packed with macro and micro-nutrients, it can be digested quickly, so they spend more time ruminating. 

 

Plus it’s safe to graze when facial eczema makes grass high risk, and you don’t have to worry about bloat. 

 

Graze early, earn more

 

501 Chicory is an annual, so it jumps out of the ground faster than perennial cultivars, and is ready to graze sooner. That gives up to one more full grazing than other chicories, or as much as 550 kg extra dry matter per ha.

 

At a payout of $9/kg milksolids, that equates to a potential gain of $450/ha, and unlike supplement you don’t need any machinery to feed it out or rely on suppliers to deliver it, either.

 

Mineral miner

 

That big tap root doesn’t just help 501 Chicory keep growing in dry weather – it also mines the soil for excess minerals like nitrogen and potassium.

 

Sow it on your effluent blocks, and after grazing, your cows will happily help redistribute those essential nutrients more evenly back around the rest of the farm.

 

Leach less

 

We hear a lot about plantain’s potential to mitigate nitrogen loss, but science has shown us chicory can be equally helpful.

 

In research trials, cows grazing chicory excreted significantly less nitrogen every time they urinated, reducing the nitrogen load in the urine patch compared to ryegrass clover pasture.

 

With urine patches major contributors of nitrogen loss from grazed systems, averaging 700 kg/ha nitrogen per urination in traditional pastoral farming, this is a key benefit for 501 Chicory.

 

Give grass a rest

 

Hot, dry summers can be hard on your existing pastures, especially if you aren’t able to protect them from over-grazing.

 

Paddocks of 501 Chicory are the ideal antidote. When you graze these, you’re not only looking after your cows, you’re also giving stressed ryegrass a break, so it can bounce back faster after rain.

 

What next?

 

Contact your seed rep today.