Why use the 2021 Recommended Grass and Clover List?

Monday 10.05.2021 , News

This month sees the publication of the 2021 Recommended Grass and Clover List (RGCL) outlining the UK’s top grass varieties. Excellent grassland managers share an attention to detail when it comes to choosing their grass seed. It is detail the RGCL provides, making it an invaluable guide for those looking to choose new varieties and enhance their grassland productivity.

Grass varieties on the RGCL are independently tested at multiple sites across Britain over a four-year period and evaluated by a panel of experts. This rigorous testing process ensures the listed varieties are the very best, with only 1 in 20 varieties tested found within the final selection. By selecting from the RGCL farmers can be sure they are using varieties shown to perform well under British conditions.

Each variety on the list is measured by a range of crucial characteristics including spring growth, heading date and grazing yield. Understanding what each of these characteristics means helps you to choose which varieties are best suited to your system, conditions and production goals.

“We believe in only producing the best varieties, so our seeds simply do not enter production until they appear on the recommended list,” says Ben Wixey, Germinal’s National Agricultural Sales Manager. “There is a delay between new varieties appearing on the list and being available to sow. This is because the performance of every variety we sell is independently verified and tested across a number of parameters giving you confidence it’ll perform on the farm and maximise your grassland productivity.”

With the constant improvement in plant genetics the RGCL develops continually with the quality of varieties included improving each year. Germinal varieties AberBann, AberSpey, AberLee and AberSwan, first appeared on the list in 2017 or 2018 and are now available, all offering performance benefits:

  • AberBann: an exceptional grazing variety with outstanding quality and yield producing the highest energy/hectare. Also well-suited to silage making throughout the season.
  • AberSpey: multi-cut variety with exceptional ME yield and excellent ground cover. Beneficial to early silage making.
  • AberLee: long-term grazing grass variety for cattle and sheep in a rotational or set stocking system. Its particularly high digestibility drives dry matter intakes.
  • AberSwan: white clover with outstanding persistency when cut and grazed, out-yielding other white clovers into the third harvest year.

To find these varieties in Germinal’s High Sugar Grass mixtures, see our Aber HSG products range.

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