Plantain mix increasingly popular crop

FINISHING STRONGLY: A close-up of the red clover and plantain crop.

A plant that most urban people regard as a flat weed pest in lawns is gaining momentum year-on-year in Wairarapa as a valuable forage crop.

The sale of plantain seed for direct drilling has skyrocketed in the last few years as farmers recognise the unlikely plant as being an excellent food source, especially for finishing lambs.

Wairarapa Federated Farmers meat and fibre chairman William Beetham, who farms at Wainuioru, started off tentatively four years ago planting a single plantain block and quickly satisfied himself that the benefits of plantain were real and now has 200ha planted.

Mr Beetham said plantain mixed with white and red clover had proved its worth with good lamb growth rates, as a crop for flushing ewes, in higher lambing percentages and in winter by continuing to grow allowing the farm to do trade lambs off it.

"We take a huge amount of dry matter off it in the spring and right through the warmer months," Mr Beetham said.

The seed, he said, was cheaper than grass seed and direct drilling a hectare of plantain cost about $700.

Mr Beetham said the farm had settled on plantain/clover combinations having previously tried " every other plant within our environment including chicory and lucerne".

A downside of plantain cropping has been weeds, particularly thistle infestations, being difficult to manage.

Mr Beetham said he mowed the thistles but chemicals to deal to thistles without damaging the plantain were being developed.

Masterton farmers Ginny and John Cameron have the whole of a 5ha property on the east side of town planted in plantain/red clover and about 25ha on their main farm property.

"We have a good mix of Tonic plantain and Sensation red clover.

" Last summer during the drought we found the plantain was the only green left on the farm, it grows all year and stock that feed on it remain in good condition," Mrs Cameron said.

She said the east side block was now being used to finish off lambs that would be trucked off the property once they had reached 34kg.

Phil Keinzley, owner of Keinzley Agvet, said whereas chicory was still the plant of choice for finishing lambs in summer plantain was popular throughout the year.

"This year it has been really fashionable and the biggest problem in the last two years is that demand has outstripped the available seed supply," he said.

Mr Keinzley said the popularity of plantain has been at the expense of brassica crops.

"They have been the big losers, crops like rape, kale and turnips," he said.