Forage Options

Greg O'Brien from The Victorian Department of Primary Industries will speak on February 9 2011 at the Alberton property of Stuart & Jenny Bland.

Greg works on the Adapative Forage project.

The Adaptive Forage Planning project is a state-wide DPI Victoria project. It plans to help dairy farmers adapt to seasonal variability using forage planning to achieve the appropriate mix of home grown and purchased forage (crops and pastures).

This work investigates the variability of home grown forage supply and the use of a forage planning approach to reduce the impact of this variability.
Purchasing of forage requires a reliable supply of a feed of consistent and known nutritive values. Having it grown locally will reduce transport costs to the purchasers and provide more opportunities for cropping farmers. To support a Gippsland fodder industry, forages that meet both the requirement of cropping farmers and dairy farmers are needed.

Currently this project is conducting forage crop demonstrations at Flynn and Yarram to provide information of some crop options for dairy, cropping and mixed farmers and service providers. Yield, quality and reliability of the forages will help in planning the way forward for a Gippsland forage industry.