Richard Horsington from Sherborne, Dorset has just taken his first cut of the new grass seed mixture from Limagrain LGAN Silage and Grazing Mixture. Although he’s awaiting the analysis, initial impressions are good.

“We made 220 round bales of silage from 25 acres which is very good for this field – it was a bulky crop of grass. And out nutritionist ‘sampled’ the grass by tasting it, describing it as especially ‘sugary’. We will be very pleased if the analysis reflects these initial impressions.”

Richard and Adam Horsington run a 130 Holstein Friesian cow herd on a summer grazing and winter housed system and feed a total mixed ration incorporating high quality grass silage.

LGAN  -Limagrain Genetics Animal Nutrition – are grass seed mixtures from Limagrain specially formulated for enhanced nutrition as well as good agronomic characteristics.

Trials carried out at the independent Schothorst Feed Research Institute in The Netherlands compared a Limagrain LGAN dual purpose tetraploid grass seed mixture with a good quality conventional grass mixture fed in a ration with maize, soyabean and rapeseed meal and ground wheat.

Results showed that cows fed on the LGAN grass silage averaged 1.4litres a day more than cows fed silage based on the conventional grass seed mixture. The digestibility and energy value of the diet improved by 3% and there was a 5% improvement in overall feed efficiency.