Forages represent a large part of Kentucky’s farm receipts, both directly as cash hay and indirectly through livestock.

As cash hay, forage accounts for about 60 to 70 million dollars annually. However, if you total up the livestock enterprises that depend on forages as a major input, then this total rises to over 1 billion dollars.

Improving productivity of these acres by choosing an improved variety would have a large impact on potential farm income from forage livestock systems. These improved varieties should represent an increase in yield, persistence and disease or pest resistances.

Why don’t farmers seed improved varieties?
The answer to this question has several parts. First, it is the indirect nature of the marketing of forages that can make farmers resistant to adoption of newer varieties. Also, because the yield of most forage crops are spread over multiple harvests and over multiple years in the case of perennials, differences in yield are particularly hard to see.

Finally, because of the costs of development and promotion, newer varieties are almost always more expensive than older brands of seed. As a result, there is a strong tendency for farmers, when buying seed, to choose older brands, even uncertified varieties. In doing so, their actions have just stated very strongly they feel there is no difference between the older, unimproved seed and new varieties.

Benefits from using improved forage varieties

•Seed quality
The seed quality standards of companies marketing newer certified varieties of forage crops often exceed that required for certification. For example, the minimum requirement for germination of certified red clover seed is 85 percent. However, companies may specify that total germination be 90 percent, depending on their standards. Certified seed will be very free of other crop seed, inert material and weed seed.

•Consistent performance
Certified seed is your assurance the performance on your farm will match the name on the bag. Forage varieties may have 20 or more parents. These ‘parent plants’ are seeded from foundation or breeders seed in an area that can be excluded from pollination by ‘wild’ or other plants of the same species. The seed harvested from this field is classified as ‘certified.’ The process of seed certification involves a process where this isolation is checked. In the case of uncertified or common seed, there is no verification of isolation or any other standards.

Finally, what is in a name? There is quite a bit of confusion about whether buying uncertified ‘Kenland’ is actually buying an ‘improved’ variety. The perception of producers is that buying a ‘name’ variety is in fact buying an improved variety. As the ‘Porgy and Bess’ song goes, ‘It ain’t necessarily so.’ But, you say, haven’t we been stressing the importance of buying newer named varieties and to avoid common seed? Yes, but seed can be sold under the names of varieties that were developed by public institutions or even companies as long as that variety was not plant variety protected (called PVP).

However, farmer expectations from buying a ‘named’ variety are high, even if it is not certified. The best example of this in Kentucky is ‘Kenland’ red clover. There is very little certified ‘Kenland’ but a great deal of uncertified ‘Kenland’ available.

University of Kentucky research has shown that the performance of uncertified lots of ‘Kenland’ vary greatly and in general are much poorer than that of certified varieties. Sigafus and Taylor found that out of 10 uncertified lots of ‘Kenland’ seed from a variety of sources, only two had any measurable yield in the third year after seeding into wheat compared to 3.4 tons per acre for ‘Kenstar’. Six of these produced less than half the yield of Kenstar in the second, or primary year of red clover growth.

How to avoid the ‘name’ trap
Generally, all newer varieties released by universities or companies protect the name of the variety by a process known as Plant Variety Protection (PVP). That is, you will never be able to find uncertified ‘Renegade’, ‘Redland III’, or ‘Cinnamon’ red clover if they are PVP’ed. If seed is taken from these fields that does not meet the company standards or certification standards, then it cannot be sold under the brand name.

However, with older varieties like ‘Kentucky 31’ tall fescue, and ‘Kenland’ red clover, seed can be sold under the name without certification. The best way to be sure you are going to get the performance to match the name is to look for the blue certified seed tag.

•Availability
Proprietary varieties will be consistently available at agribusiness outlets. Their supply will show less fluctuation than the stocks of common or uncertified seed.

•Improved performance
Ultimately, there must be some measurable benefit in terms of yield, persistence, quality or disease resistance to justify the increased cost of newer, improved varieties of forage crops. As an example, let’s look at red clover.

Using improved, certified varieties of red clover has been a consistent recommendation for Kentucky’s producers. However, the difference in cost between uncertified, common red clover and improved certified red clover seed can exceed $1 per pound.

Research was begun at the University of Kentucky in the spring of 1991 to compare the yields of improved, certified red clover to that of four unidentified common medium red clovers obtained from local distributors. In the first year, the difference between the average performance of the certified varieties in the test and the average of the four commons was over 1000 pounds of dry matter per acre. In the second and third years, the average effect of seeding an improved, certified variety of red clover was worth almost 2000 pounds per acre and 3000 pounds per acre, respectively.

However, if a farmer is going to plant a better variety, he or she is not going to select the “average” variety; they are going to go after the best. Also, since buying a common variety of red clover is, by definition, getting an unknown product, it is valid to compare the difference between the best and the worst red clovers in the trial. We found that differences in stand height were visible in the plots within 18 months of seeding. In addition, there was visible thinning of the common stands by fall of the first full production year.

Comparing the stand and yield of the best and worst red clovers indicates the advantage of using the “best” variety according to these yield tests was worth 5.3 tons of dry matter or over 6.2 tons of 15 percent moisture hay. Most of this difference in yield occurred at the end of the stand life when the commons failed to persist.

The bottom line is that seeding an improved variety of certified red clover seed pays in terms of yield and stand, period.

Putting an economic value on the forage generated from the investment in better seed is equally impressive. Seeding 10 pounds of seed of red clover in tall fescue would cost approximately $10 more per acre compared to common seed. If you value the 6.2 tons of hay at $80 per ton, then the net improvement in income per acre over a three-year period would be $496 minus $10 or $486. Seeding better red clover truly pays. FG

References are available upon request. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

—From University of Kentucky Extension website

Jimmy C. Henning and Garry Lacefield, Extension Forage Specialists; Leonard Lauriault, Agronomy Department, University of Kentucky

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