A salt-tolerant pasture legume is set to make a big difference in saline and waterlogging-prone areas of southern Australia.
SARDI and the Department of Agriculture and Food WA have spent more than a decade developing the messina cultivar and its exclusive rhizobium, or nitrogen fixing bacteria.
Commercial partner Seednet will make 20 tonnes to 30t of seed available to growers in 2017.
DAFWA senior research officer Phil Nichols says the self-generating annual legume will offer a productivity boost for farmers with salinity and waterlogging issues.
Messina came to the fore from more than 40 pasture legumes collected from Mediterranean environments in a Future Farming Industries CRC project.
Progress was delayed by the hunt for a rhizobium strain which could persist during summer in saline areas, after 70 per cent of early nodulation failed in the second and later years.
“A salt-tolerant rhizobium has been found, (and) it is critical messina is inoculated with it, otherwise regenerating plants will be yellow and stunted and unlikely to survive,” Dr Nichols said.
“Where even barley grass struggled to grow we have a nitrogen fixing legume to go with perennial grasses, such as puccinellia.”
Trials have shown messina – a type of Melilotus – has similar protein and energy value to clovers and lucerne.
Dr Nichols says sowing messina in a mix with salt-tolerant grasses or with balansa clover and burr medics or even with saltbush was likely to be the best fit.
“You tend to find animals prefer messina when they also have access to other legumes, herbs and grasses,” he said.
“Once it starts flowering it is a little less palatable but the advantage is it can set seed without being grazed out.”
SARDI senior research officer Amanda Pearce says it is a “game-changer”, especially with previous trial sites regenerating for up to three years.
“It is really exciting after such a long time to get to this point,” she said.
At Conmurra this year it produced 6.5 tonnes dry matter a hectare and was impressive at a Cooke Plains saline demonstration site.
Grazing trials on non-saline land at Kybybolite have shown liveweight gains in ewes grazing pure messina are slightly less than Monti sub clover, but animal production on saline land will be far superior from messina than barley grass alone.
Dr Nichols said a meat tasting panel also found no difference in meat quality between lambs grazing messina and Monti subclover.