Dear John,
Our farm has 6 paddocks of a well known ryegrass which is two seasons old
now, that the cows just don't eat and as a consequence drop in milk every
time they graze them. These paddocks will be sprayed out next autumn. And it
has nothing to do with grazing management. We no longer can afford to have
these paddocks in the rotation and are locked up for silage, hoping we can
feed it to something some time.
Regards
Vikki Templeton
-----Original Message-----
From: John Evans [mailto:johne@heritageseeds.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 25 September 2006 11:59 AM
To: vicdairy-l@unimelb.edu.au
Subject: RE: endophyte & fescue
I should have been clearer with my previous post, apologies.
There would need to be a lot of ryegrass for the endophyte in the ryegrass
to have a significant effect on stock grazing. I think there would need to
be at least 20% ryegrass in the pasture. It is more likely confusion about
endophyte in tall fescue and endophytes in general resulting in people
blaming stock refusing to graze fescue pastures on endophyte which it is
not, it is probably grazing management related. We have not had endophyte in
tall fescues in Australia since Demeter hit the market decades ago and the
new endophytes (Max P etc.) don't contribute to this.
As for the crazy stock, one of the chemicals (ergovaline) produced by the
wild endophyte in both ryegrass and tall fescue has been linked with this
type of effect, although I can't recall seeing any scientific evidence, only
anecdotal. Similarly with my point above, the stock would need to be eating
a fair amount of wild endophyte ryegrass to get an effect like this. The
only other way stock could be getting a belly full of ergovaline would be if
the tall fescue was contaminated with wild endophyte from the beginning
which is unlikely.
My guess would be that any problem with palatability is grazing management
related and the crazy stock story has been added for colour.
Cheers
John
Dr John Evans
Technical Development Manager
Heritage Seeds Pty Ltd
Po Box 4020 Mulgrave Vic 3170 Australia
Office: +61 3 9501 7000
Fax: +61 3 9561 9333
Mobile: +61 413 442 810
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill and Alicia Patterson [mailto:redmill@cfw.com]
Sent: Monday, 25 September 2006 11:25 AM
To: vicdairy-l@unimelb.edu.au
Subject: Re: endophyte & fescue
Hi Noel,
I'm a bit unclear. Are you saying that they cows won't eat the Advance
fescue, or that the endophyte in the ryegrass is the problem?
Bill Patterson
Crimora VA USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Noel Pattinson" <noel@netspace.net.au>
To: <vicdairy-l@unimelb.edu.au>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 1:43 AM
Subject: Re: endophyte & fescue
> Thanks for the replies Leon & John,
> The reason I asked the question was that I had read that endophytes had
> been
> removed from the new varieties of fescue for cow health reasons and yet
> some
> southern NSW farmers are glyphosating large areas of Advance fescue
> because
> they have been told that its the endophyte that's making the plants
> unpalatable to the stock and if they can get the cows to eat it they go
> crazy busting though fences etc.)
> I Guess that when they spray the fescue they will kill the problem
> ryegrass
> also and solve their problem anyway....unless they drill the same ryegrass
> back in !!!!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Noel Pattinson
> Willung
> Gippsland
> Victoria
>
>
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