New Zealand’s earliest growing ryegrass promises significant gains in spring productivity for red meat producers, especially when it comes to finishing more lambs off mum.

 

Tyson is our latest diploid perennial ryegrass and grows 35% more DM than other leading cultivars during early spring.

 

Bred from Barenbrug’ best early season producers Meridian and Arrow, it’s been developed to help correct the traditional pasture feed pinch through lambing and calving.

 

As a result it is the only perennial ryegrass currently available with a -7 day heading date. 

This fills a critical gap in the market for sheep and beef farmers who want to lamb onto faster growing pasture, get more grass into ewes with lambs at foot and give themselves more choice around weaning decisions. 

 

That’s the message from Will Henson, Barenbrug pasture systems agronomist.

“Tyson is a fantastic tool for improving feed supply, particularly for today’s fertile, high performing ewes. They’re bigger than they used to be; scanning and lambing percentages are higher and the better we can feed them between lambing and weaning, the more efficient the whole system becomes.”

Tyson is highly suited to systems which need to optimise spring pasture and animal growth before the possible arrival of drier conditions in summer and autumn.

 

Like any pasture, Will Henson says, it must be set stocked at the recommended cover of 1200-1300kg DM/ha (3-4cm pasture height) for singles, or 1500-1700kg DM/ha (4-6cm height) for multiples, through lambing.

 

Otherwise it won’t have the leaf area to capture enough sunlight to grow to its genetic potential.

“Set stocking at the right cover ensures the optimal early spring growth rates not only for the grass, but also for your lambs.”

 

Tyson is available this spring with AR1 endophyte. We recommend sowing it at 20kg/ha, mixed with a small leaved white clover (Apex) at 2kg/ha and medium leaved white clover (Weka) at 2kg/ha.