High sugar grasses - harnessing the benefits of new cultivars through growth management.

protein supply to the ruminant. It also has environmental implications, as urine N deposited on soil is a source of greenhouse gas emissions (as nitrous oxide), and increased nitrate leaching. One strategy proposed by forage breeders to recapture proteins degraded in the rumen into microbial protein, available in the small intestine, is to increase the energy supply to the rumen by elevating water soluble carbohydrates (WSCs) in grazed leaf blades (Turner et al. 2006). There have been conflicting conclusions as to the efficacy of high sugar grasses (HSGs) to boost animal productivity and/or improve ruminal nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), but proof of concept was demonstrated in two recent reviews by combining data from multiple sources (Edwards et al. 2007a, b). The reviews suggested that to harness the benefits of HSGs, in improving NUE, depended on a sufficient elevation of WSC: crude protein (CP) ratio, from 0.6 to c. 1.2-1.5. A far greater elevation of sugars is therefore necessary in productive forage based systems (with high N content of herbage, >3% of DM) to achieve the same NUE (low urinary N loss) seen on low herbage N diets. In United Kingdom (UK) and European (EU) field trials, the HS trait was seen to be consistently expressed, with the concentrations of WSC in the cultivar ‘AberDart’ being c. 10-14% higher than in ‘Fennema’ (the EU control) (Halling et al. 2004). However, the amount of sugar harvested per ha (dry matter yield x concentration) was not greater. Initial field trials in New Zealand (NZ), using EU cultivars, revealed a gene x temperature (G x E) interaction that explained some concerns over a (then) less consistent expression of the trait in NZ compared to EU controls (Parsons et al. 2004). But sugar levels are also affected by defoliation management (M). Storage sugars, such as the fructose polymers (fructans) found mainly in leaf sheaths, are not only valuable as a long-term seasonal energy store in cool-temperate grasses, but can also be critical for regrowth following defoliation (Pollock & Cairns 1991; Pavis et al. 2001). Fructans may be consumed at early stages of regrowth after severe defoliation, when plant photosynthetic carbon/energy supply has been substantially reduced (Morvan-Bertrand et al. 2001). They are remobilised in the stubble, and transported Abstract Perennial ryegrass cultivars with high levels of watersoluble carbohydrates (WSCs) have been proposed as a means to increase animal performance and nitrogen use efficiency in pasture-based animal production systems, with consequent environmental benefits. But this depends on a sufficient elevation of WSC in leaves. A gene x environment interaction (G x E) in the expression of the high sugar (HS) trait has been shown previously, with WSCs measured at a single stage in regrowth. Here we report a controlled environment study of how WSCs change over the duration of regrowth (cf defoliation management, M) in 5 ryegrass cultivars, under two temperature regimes. Overall, the UK cultivar ‘AberDart’, and a breeding line ‘PG1113’, maintained significantly higher levels of WSCs in blades, than UK and New Zealand control cultivars. This was true both in a 20oC/10oC (day/ night) temperature growth regime, where WSCs decreased substantially following defoliation before recovering to pre-defoliation levels, and in a ‘colder’ (10oC/10oC) regime, where the decrease in WSCs was less, notably in ‘PG1113’. Any complexity in the change in WSCs during regrowth, and any gene x management (G x M) or G x E interaction, introduces uncertainty in assessing new plant traits under uncontrolled field conditions. This may go some way to explain some inconsistency in expression seen in field trials. Our results show simple guidelines for defoliation management are sufficient to ensure WSCs are high at the time of harvest. We also propose a method for presenting data on plant chemical composition that reveals reductions in fibre (and less so in crude protein) seen in HSGs may not be a fundamental change in plant structural composition, but largely a simple effect of ‘dilution’.