A smart alternative
Published on 10 March 2025
Are your ryegrass paddocks struggling to persist due to environmental conditions? If so, alternative pasture species could provide the solution. One such option is Tall Fescue, particularly RGT Nouga, which is gaining widespread recognition as a high performing alternative to traditional ryegrass-based pastoral systems.
Tall Fescue offers several distinct advantages, making it a compelling choice for modern farming systems:
- Earlier Spring Feed – Provides valuable early-season feed, ensuring livestock have access to high-quality nutrition.
- Better Summer Growth – With a deep root system and superior tolerance to heat and environmental stress, tall fescue outperforms ryegrass in summer, maintaining reliable growth even in dry conditions.
- Enhanced Salt Tolerance – More resilient in saline soils, making it particularly well suited to coastal farming systems.
- Improved Legume Compatibility – Tall Fescue integrates with legumes much better than ryegrass, creating a higher quality sward. This results in superior animal performance at key times of the year, such as early spring and summer.
Despite these benefits, Tall Fescue has not always been the first choice for farmers. Issues with palatability and pasture management have historically made it difficult to maintain quality through the spring, sometimes offsetting its productivity advantages.
However, RGT Nouga Tall Fescue breaks this mold. With a soft, highly palatable leaf and a later flowering date, it offers ease of management comparable to ryegrass. Its soft fresh growth and high legume content further enhance palatability, ensuring livestock readily graze it throughout the season.
Throughout the South Island and the North Island, RGT Nouga Tall Fescue is proving its worth across a diverse range of farm systems. Whether in dairy, early lamb production, or weaner deer farming, the key to profitability lies in high-quality, early-spring feed. With RGT Nouga, farmers can maximise liveweight gains and milk production during this critical window, setting their system up for success.
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