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Lucerne is a highly nutritious forage for livestock. It combines good digestibility with high proteins providing excellent milk yields or daily live weight gains.
Well managed, this perennial crop can persist for up to five years and performs well in free-draining, drier environments due to tap roots.
Expert Advice
- One of the most underrated and underutilised forage crops available to livestock farmers in the UK
- To get the best from your lucerne crop, ensure a minimum of 50% of the tallest stems have a flower prior to the first grazing/cutting
- If the stand is weedy at establishment it can be grazed/cut ONCE if it is 15-20cm tall and then left to flower to a minimum of 50%
Utilisation: Grazing / silage
Sowing period: Spring
Utilisation period: Year-round
Days to maturity: 40 days
Advantages
- Dual purpose cutting or grazing
- Perennial - Well managed crops can persist for up to 5 years
- Performs well in free draining, drier environments due to tap roots
- Liveweight gains in lambs >300 - 500 g/hd/d – when rotationally grazed or cut
- High quality and high protein, which is easily digested
Limitations
- Requires soil pH 6.0 and above and high levels of P to establish
- Requires good management
Sowing rate: 8-10kg/acre (20-25kg/ha). Drill at 5 - 12mm deep on normal soils or up to 25mm on light sandy soils.
Pack sizes: Available in pack sizes 25kg