More grass growth promises lusher life

PHIL REID/ Dominion Post

NEW FOR OLD: Pasture Renewal Trust chairman Murray Willocks reflects on examples illustrating the difference between old and new pastures. On the left is a 12-year-old ryegrass. The cultivar on the right is six months old.

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Growing more new grass could earn the country an extra $1.6 billion, according to Business and Economic Research Ltd (Berl).

The economic researcher was commissioned by a charitable trust set to assess the value to New Zealand of agricultural pastures. The trust was set up in 2006 to promote pasture renewal and includes representatives of pasture researcher Grasslanz Technology, and seed, fertiliser, agricultural chemical and rural retail companies.

Berl said the $1.6b extra would come if dairy farmers doubled their pasture renewal rate to 12 per cent a year and if sheep and beef farmers increased theirs from 2 per cent to 8 per cent.

To put the $1.6b into perspective, New Zealand would need to attract an extra 460,000 international tourists to generate the same boost.

It was the same as doubling the national beef herd or increasing the dairy cows by 25 per cent. Beef production is valued at $1.2b, sheep at $2.2b and dairying at $6.6b.

Pasture Renewal Trust chairman Murray Willocks said such increases were well within farmers' capability.

New varieties of ryegrass and clover, pastures with greater water efficiency, tolerance to heat, insect resistance and improved animal health, had been developed using naturally occurring microscopic fungi called endophytes, which live inside the plant cells.

The potential for dairying to earn more was huge, he said. Berl estimated that if 200,000 of the 1.96 million hectares in dairying could be regrassed, extra gross earnings at a $5.50 payout would be between $1.37b and $1.46b.

The Berl report follows a literature review by AgResearch on pasture renewal research in New Zealand. It noted that despite rapid recent gains in dairy productivity, most feed systems were near capacity.

Improved pastoral and fertiliser management could boost production but they were constrained by the falling performance of aging pastures.

Pastures typically peak in performance two to three years after establishment and decline. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of New Zealand pastures are 20, 30 and more than 40 years old.

Berl noted that quality information on the level of grass growth was hard to come by, particularly for sheep and beef farms, with few trials being run.

Mr Willocks said the challenge now was to increase overall pasture production through the genetic gains made in the breeding of both ryegrass and white clover cultivars coupled with improved pasture management.

- © Fairfax NZ News