Mississippi Annual Cool-season Forage Crop Variety Trials, 2016

Varieties of several forage-crop species are evaluated every year in Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES) small-plot forage trials. Entries are provided by seed companies and forage and breeding programs at state universities. Experimental and commercially available varieties are tested at one or more locations across Mississippi. All entries from privately owned companies are tested on a fee basis. Standard varieties may be added by the MAFES varietytesting program as a reference for comparison purposes. In addition, varieties of interest may also be added when applicable. Sources of seed are presented in Table 18. This report contains data from eight small-grain, 38 annual ryegrass, and 11 annual clover varieties. Testing during 2016–17 was conducted at North Mississippi Branch Experiment Station in Holly Springs, Leveck Animal Research Center Forage Unit on the Mississippi State campus, Coastal Plain Branch Experiment Station in Newton, and White Sands Research Unit in Poplarville.

Data presented in Tables 2–17 can be used to evaluate the performance of each forage crop within its respective trial. Mean and harvest comparisons were evaluated statistically by using the least significant difference (LSD) test at the probability level of α = 0.05. The LSD value represents the minimum amount of yield (pounds per acre) that must be observed between any two varieties to determine if the difference was due to variety variation alone.

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