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Two successful combinations of legume/cereal winter forage crops

Solution name: Two successful combinations of legume/cereal winter forage crops

Aim: Giving examples of combinations of legume/cereal intercroping for winter forage crops that have been tested or used with satisfying results in central Greece.

Description:

  • Adding a proportion of cereals, when sowing legumes fodder crops, allows easier harvesting and higher productivity and quality of forage. This is achieved as cereals act as a stake allowing the growth of the legume at a higher height and avoiding spoilage of crop when sloping. Moreover, the mixture is performing better during fermentation for silage.  Combinations presented concern non-irrigated winter forage crops: vetch/barley and forage pea/oat which, under Mediterranean climate, can be harvested early enough to allow for a second crop in the field when irrigation water is available.

Topic: Nutrition

Production:  Dairy/meat

Animal Category: adults/lambs

Issue: Forage crops

Level of Solution: Knowledge, Practical

Country: Greece

 

 

 

 

 

How to implement it

Example 1 (research experiment) :

  • Vetch (variety Alexandros) with barley (variety Colorado). 150kg seed/ha. Proportions of seed weight at sowing are 33% cereal/67% legume.
  • Forage pea (variety Arvika) with oat (variety Kassandra), sowed. 180kg seed/ha. Proportions of seed weight at sowing are 25% cereal/75% legume.

Both intercrops were sown in winter (early December) and cut in Spring (mid-May). Intercrops were fertilized with a superphosphate (0-46-0) at 200 kg/ha. A double sowing was essential for even distribution of plants since seeds of the different species differ in their physical parameters.

 

Example 2 (farmer’s practice, routinely used):

Vetch (variety Alexandros) with barley (or oat) and forage pea (variety Olympos) with oat, sowed in Autumn (end October) and cut in Spring (from end of April until mid-May) for hay or silage. 180kg seed/ha. Proportions of seed weight at sowing are 17% cereal/83% legume.

Expected benefits
  • Easier harvesting, higher productivity and quality of forage both as hay and silage. Results of the research experiment indicated, at the harvesting period, a fresh yield (@25% dry matter) of 25-50T/ha for the combination vetch/barley, depending on the agronomic potential of the field, and a slightly lower yield for the combination forage pea/oat. Crude protein content of forage at harvesting was about 16% of DM for vetch/barley and 12% of DM for forage pea/oat.

Cost Benefit analysis

Adding a small percentage of cereals at seeding of legume forage crop (case of vetch-oat) increases seeding costs (due to the addition of cereal seeds) and contractor charges (more bales produced). However, this extra-cost is largely covered by the outputs generated by the extra production of forage and the higher forage quality (decrease of losses by spoiling). The average increase in earning is 675€/ha when compared to single vetch cropping.

Sustainability analysis

With the vetch-oat combination, the farmer increases its forage production thus its feed self-efficiency. On-farm extra production decreases the purchase of forage and then environmental impacts of transport.
With the vetch-oat combination, there is no additional consumption of fuel at seeding by hectare, but an extra forage production. The fuel consumption/ton of forage is then reduced for the farmer. This has to be nuanced by extra fuel consumption for harvesting (see contractor charges).
No aspects of social sustainability have been identified.

Information Source / Usefull links

Laboratory of Nutrition Physiology and Feeding, Agricultural University of Athens

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