Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.)

Many dairy farmers sow Italian ryegrass in the fall to cut one cut in the spring, then destroy the grass. Italian ryegrass is particularly suitable for this application. It is less resistant to grazing and does not persist for very long, but it does grow rapidly in the spring. Varieties do show large differences, however.

In 2018, ILVO started a large and unusual trial in which ALL varieties of Italian ryegrass registered on the Belgian list were sown and evaluated for two years.

Normally this does not happen because it takes (too) much space: only the new candidate varieties are sown and their performance is estimated for the other varieties on the list by means of a statistical calculation. But since some varieties have been on the list for a very long time - the oldest breed since 1946! - it was time to also compare their performance in practice with that of the newer varieties.

In total, 22 varieties were compared in this extensive trial. Two popular varieties on foreign lists were also tested. These varieties are often sown by Belgian farmers, but have never been tested in Belgium before. All 22 were scored for yield, persistence, rust resistance and digestibility. And the results are clear.

Joke Pannecoucque: “The newer varieties score better than the older ones in all areas. In addition, the varieties on the foreign list also perform less well in certain aspects than the varieties on our list.”

View the descriptive variety list of Italian ryegrass 2020