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Points of view: Devon farmers listen intently to Neil Matson's grass presentation at a ACT meeting

IMPROVE the quality of your grassland and significantly increase your profitability. That was the message from ACT's grass products manager Neil Matson who addressed an ACT-hosted farmers' meeting at Folly Gate, Near Okehampton in Devon.

Overall, there are about 32 million acres of grassland in the UK which outnumber cereals by 8:1 and forage maize by a whopping 80:1, so it would be fair to assume that just by the sheer volume of the crop, farmers would have recognised its importance and farmed it with the same levels of expertise that is always offered to their arable crops. "Not quite the case,'' explained Mr Matson.

Although the total amount of grassland in the UK has remained static for years, the amount of permanent pasture, i.e., those leys of five years of age or more, has increased quite significantly, but unfortunately at the expense of temporary grassland, i.e., below five years of age, which clearly demonstrates a marked reluctance on the part of the British farmer to re-seed on a regular basis.

It is common knowledge that better grass always equals more grass, less bought-in feeds, better grass intakes, better nitrogen efficiency and quicker re-growth to name but a few, yet farmers have this seemingly complacent attitude toward any grassland improvement, let alone getting anywhere near maximising its true potential.

It was unanimously agreed on the night that improving grassland must improve profits and there were a few comments about why farmers are so reluctant to re-seed with a few who felt that re-seeding costs were too high, maybe there just "wasn't enough time in the autumn to do the job properly" plus "I cannot afford to take any of my grazing fields out of production."

The figures that were put up on the board that night were quite fascinating as it came from the audience themselves. Between them, they decided that the total costs of re-seeding came to £243 per acre, which included all the mechanical work, fertilisers, lime, seed and herbicide - there was nothing left out! The audience also decided what the likely levels of improvements would be from a new re-seed as opposed to a much older ley, with those improvements then translated into genuine and realistic figures for increased milk production per acre or liveweight gains per acre.

Assuming a very conservative increase in dry matter yield of 25 per cent and just a modest improvement in ME from 10.5 to 11.0, most dairy farmers could see an increase in milk yield of 5566 litres which, at 25ppl, would equate to £1,392 per acre. By taking a much more realistic approach and assume a virtual doubling of dry matter yield with the ME much closer to 11.5, the increase in milk yield could be close to £1,800 per acre. Even allowing for the costs of re-seeding, the minimum increase that you are likely to see is £1000 per acre - and that's just in the first year!

The ACT range of grass seeds which are marketed as ACTion Seeds offer a complete range to all grassland farmers and Mr Matson is particularly keen to extol the advantages of what he believes is a technically superb range in which he highlights two particular mixtures - the very best long-term grazing mixture on the market which is No. 59 Sweet Grazer - a 14 kg all tetraploid mixture with the option of 1kg of a white clover blend and Quality Cutter No. 57 - a long-term conservation mixture which features 71 per cent tetraploids and very close heading dates.

'They are, quite simply the best,'' said Mr Matson. "The high sugar content of the tetraploids mean that intakes are always high and with good resistancy to both crown rust and mildew, farmers are safe in the knowledge that these taylor made mixtures will really perform,'' he said.

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