Straights
Straight products that can be sown alone or, should you wish, mixed yourself.
Swedes
Winter hardy, high energy full season forage crop. Spring sown with good frost tolerance providing a reliable feed source across the entire winter. Extremely high in energy compared to other root crops and produces large dry matter yields. Generally grazed in situ or can be lifted.
Fodder Beet
A very high energy, high yielding winter feed for cattle or sheep. More commonly lifted but can be grazed in situ. Management inputs can be higher than other winter feed crops and requires optimum conditions to be successful in the northern UK
Kale
A higher energy and more winter hardy brassica than forage rape. A rewarding crop when grown to it's full potential. Useful seed bearing crop in 2 year wildbird mixtures.
Forage Rape & Hybrids
Forage rape - A reliable, fast growing brassica for livestock grazing. Provides high yields of high energy feed. Reasonable winter hardiness. Hybrid - A hybrid brassica with kale and rape parentage. Resultant hybrid vigour plus kale winterhardiness and rape yield potential offers a potential advantage.
Main Crop Turnips
Faster growing than swede but slower than stubble turnips. They produce more DM yield than stubbles and are a good option where it is too late to sow swedes.
Grasses
Westerwolds and Italian offer a short term highly productive option for primarily silage.
Legumes
Legumes are soil enhancing green manure crops which can help replace nitrogen used by crops.
Herbs
Herbs offer the potential benefit of improving soil structure, increasing growth rates, carbon sequestration, resilience to extreme weather and anthelmintic properties.
Stubble Turnips
A very fast and economical crop to establish into stubbles. Can also be included in forage rape mixtures. 12-14 weeks from establish to a full crop with bulbs.
