Description
Changes in long-term climate normals have resulted in warmer and wetter summers and milder winters in the humid eastern United States. This will likely impact regional forage species adaptation in the long-term and varietal adaptation in the short term. Variety evaluation has been occurring at the University of Kentucky for almost 100 years. There are several considerations for selecting forage species and varieties including regional and local adaptation, productivity, distribution of growth, palatability, nutritive value, anti-quality factors, tolerance to stress, and persistence. Two of the most important criteria are long-term productivity and persistence under grazing, both of which are currently being evaluated in Kentucky. One potential way to use long-term data to aid in the selection of resilient cool-season perennial grass varieties for year-round grazing systems may be to graph yield (x-axis) against persistence (y-axis) where ‘100’ represents the average for the trials. This allows varieties to be ranked either above or below average for yield and persistence. Varieties in the upper right-hand quadrant are varieties that have above-average yield and persistence and would be good candidates to include in year-round grazing systems. In contrast, varieties in the lower left-hand quadrant are varieties that are below average in both yield and persistence and probably are not good candidates to include in a year-round grazing system. This approach may require adapting current variety testing strategies to better assess yield potential and persistence under grazing.
Included in
Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons, Soil Science Commons, Weed Science Commons
Cool-Season Perennials and Stability in Year-Round Forage Production Systems
Changes in long-term climate normals have resulted in warmer and wetter summers and milder winters in the humid eastern United States. This will likely impact regional forage species adaptation in the long-term and varietal adaptation in the short term. Variety evaluation has been occurring at the University of Kentucky for almost 100 years. There are several considerations for selecting forage species and varieties including regional and local adaptation, productivity, distribution of growth, palatability, nutritive value, anti-quality factors, tolerance to stress, and persistence. Two of the most important criteria are long-term productivity and persistence under grazing, both of which are currently being evaluated in Kentucky. One potential way to use long-term data to aid in the selection of resilient cool-season perennial grass varieties for year-round grazing systems may be to graph yield (x-axis) against persistence (y-axis) where ‘100’ represents the average for the trials. This allows varieties to be ranked either above or below average for yield and persistence. Varieties in the upper right-hand quadrant are varieties that have above-average yield and persistence and would be good candidates to include in year-round grazing systems. In contrast, varieties in the lower left-hand quadrant are varieties that are below average in both yield and persistence and probably are not good candidates to include in a year-round grazing system. This approach may require adapting current variety testing strategies to better assess yield potential and persistence under grazing.
