Sheep production from tedera in medium and high rainfall environments in Western Australia
| Project start date: | 01 June 2013 |
| Project end date: | 20 October 2016 |
| Publication date: | 21 October 2016 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Sheep |
| Relevant regions: | Western Australia |
|
Download Report
(3.6 MB)
|
|
Summary
Tedera (Bituminaria bituminosa C.H Stirt. vars. albomarginata) is a traditional forage species in the Canary Islands, Spain, ideally suited to Mediterranean-like climates to provide high quality green forage for grazing animals. A series of experiments from 2013 to 2016 were conducted at Kojonup and Dandaragan in Western Australia:
(a) to evaluate palatability and animal production grazing pure stands of tedera in the four seasons;
(b) to evaluate grazing in mixtures with annual species and
(c) to evaluate grazing tedera as a sole diet during summer and autumn to fill the feed-gap without the need for hand-feeding.
Key findings
The results of this project allowed us to conclude that:
(a) no health issues have been observed in any of the grazing experiments;
(b) palatability is not an issue, even though there are differences in palatability among accessions, sheep graze all the accessions and the differences in production were not related to differences in palatability and
(c) that tedera can be utilized as a substitute for grain as a maintenance feed for stock, and/or as a production feed during summer/autumn to either finish prime lambs, flush ewes in the lead up to joining or achieve weight gain for twin bearing ewes in late pregnancy to increase twin lamb survival.
More information
| Project manager: | Tom Davison |
| Primary researcher: | Department of Primary Ind Regional |
