An endophyte is a naturally occurring fungus that is found in ryegrass and tall fescue pastures. Endophytes are essential for persistence in most New Zealand pasture as it protects the plant from insect attack.
Life would be simpler with fewer endophytes, for sure. But here's the catch - in this case, you'd miss out on a striking gain in pasture performance.
It's all to do with how different endophytes bond with different ryegrasses. Some form dream teams. Some do not. The only way to find star partnerships is to have multiple endophytes to choose from.
Super-charged
Take Shogun hybrid ryegrass, for example. Paired up with the new NEA12 endophyte, it grows 8% more feed than it did with its original endophyte. Given plant breeding delivers about 1% gain a year, that's eight years of progress in one go.
"We couldn't have made this happen without first discovering NEA12 endophyte, and then testing it in Shogun," explains Barenbrug commercial manager Graham Kerr.
“ The more we research endophytes, the more we learn that the marriage between endophytes and their host ryegrass is as important as each is individually. We're not trying to make farmers' lives complicated by releasing new endophytes - but creating the best possible pastures increasingly requires great endophyte/ryegrass partnerships and you can't achieve these using just one endophyte.“
- Graham Kerr, Barenburg Commercial Manager
Prehistoric
Barenbrug science manager Colin Eady says the reason for this lies in endophyte's ancient history.
Millions of years ago fungal grass parasites lost their ability to spread from host to host and became trapped within (endo) the plant (phyte). As time passed, endophytes began forming specific relationships with different grass genetics in different parts of the world.
Because endophytes are asexual, they cannot evolve the way ryegrass can, so those relationships became fixed and stable as long as the grass host did not need to change quickly.
Mix it up
Modern plant breeding, however, is all about quick change, mixing up a wide range of ryegrass genetics to create new and better pastures.
“For example, you might have an endophyte from the Mediterranean that existed for millions of years in diploid perennial ryegrass and suddenly you put it into a perennial X annual ryegrass hybrid that has been tetraploided. That hybrid is very different from its ancestors. Yet we're expecting the endophyte to work well in this new ryegrass, so it's not surprising that it takes time and a lot of empirical testing to find a good marriage.“
- Colin Eady, Barenburg Science Manager
Potential plus
In developing a family of endophytes, Barenbrug has given itself greater opportunity to find ones that fit with newly developed elite ryegrasses, Colin says.
"In turn that gives us a greater range of ryegrass and endophyte germplasm that we can use in our breeding programme."
The company has screened over 400 different endophytes from different families since starting endophyte research 35 years ago.
"It's slow, painstaking work, but as the results of pairing up NEA12 with Shogun demonstrate, it's definitely worth the wait," Graham says.
For more information on Shogun NEA12, talk to your local TSR or visit your Farm Source store.
Article supplied by Barenbrug.
1DairyNZ.