Dairy Impressed by L92 Lucerne
June 30, 2021 All Regions
Photo: Brad and Evan Schmidt are impressed with L92‘s ability to handle the wet areas on their Yarradulla Pivot in the South East of SA, pictured with Josh Modra (Centre).
For a Yarradulla Dairy, situated near Mundulla in the South East of South Australia, growing quality green feed over the arid summer period is critical for milk production for their 300 Holstein cows. After discussions with their local agronomist, the Schmidt’s planted S&W Seed Company L92 Lucerne on an 18 hectare pivot. They were impressed by its overall production and its ability to handle the wet patches, which comes from excellent disease resistance in the variety.
The Schmidt’s chose the highly winter active L92 because they need as much feed as possible through late autumn and winter, along with good growth through summer. Lucerne is a great pasture to grow in the Mundulla environment and responds well to irrigation through the long, hot, dry summers that the region faces every year.
The 300 cow herd at Yarradulla calves all year round and is fed a combination of pasture, hay, silage and grain. The L92 pivot is direct grazed and provides a few kilograms of high quality green feed to boost milk production through the dry six month summer to autumn period, also bulking up winter feed supplies when the dryland is growing, but growth rates are slow.
The Schmidt’s were so impressed with L92 they said they are “hoping to get four to five years out of its stand and then will re-seed to keep production at its peak to meet the pasture needs of the herd.” They are also planning on getting another pivot planted down with L92 this spring.
Learn more about S&W Seed Company L92 Lucerne here.