Thumpa

These steers are enjoying a feed of Thumpa Italian ryegrass at Hannam Vale. This paddock was originally sown as a dairy support block for silage production, but is flexible enough to do the job on this mob first.

This lush paddock of Thumpa Italian ryegrass has grown away quickly in mid spring from the ewes and lambs on this property at Selbourne, in Northern Tasmania. To utilize this nutritious feed, the farmer has now locked the paddock up to make silage.

The growth from Thumpa has been phenomenal. It had still not gone to head by mid-November, and the cattle clearly found it highly palatable. Thumpa has one of the best germination rates I've seen, and that, along with its growth rate, palatability for stock, and yield for both grazing and silage makes it pretty impressive.

When the cows are grazing on Thumpa, the milk vat definitely shows an increase in literage and constant high figures. We irrigate our paddocks which definately allows it to hang on longer, even after a very dry winter and harsh summer conditions. We were able to get 335 large round bales off our 20 hectare paddock in early December, even after a very dry winter.

Thumpa Tetraploid Italian Ryegrass is a late heading variety with high yields. This paddock is on an equine stud on Central Coast, NSW.

Since introducing it, we have incorporated Thumpa into our pasture system to diversify our feed wedge, maximising available feed all year round for our primefat lamb operation. It offers exceptional winter growth - when most grass pastures go dormant, Thumpa continues to grow and has become an integral part of our prime fat lamb finishing system.

In March 2015 Paul Osborn planted a pure stand of Thumpa tetraploid Italian ryegrass on his dairy farm at Tinamba. When we spoke to him in November the stand had had a cut of hay, 3 grazings and 2 cuts of silage. He said I've used Crusader for years and I reckon its better. If I keep the water on it I may get a third cut (of silage). He continued, Last year I topped up some paddocks with the Thumpa, within a week you could see drill lines. It has good vigour and doesn't seem to run to head as early as Crusader. Across his farm Paul has planted over 100 hectares of Thumpa in a combination of mixed and pure stands.