Our customers demand a lot from their seed: yield, forage quality, winterhardiness and disease resistance. That is why we invest heavily in global R&D and our research plots. Roughly 11% (1 in 9) of DLF’s over 2,000 worldwide employees are involved in
breeding programs and product development.
For more than 30 years, DLF breeding and product development has optimized forage and grass varieties ideal to local climatic and environmental conditions to seed the green future. We aim to deliver sustainable solutions with the potential to increase
productivity of land and livestock, sequester carbon and reduce emissions in the supply chain.
60,384 forage plots ... across Canada! |
Trial Design
DLF research stations are home to the only proprietary, replicated forage trials in Ontario. Each plot in a trial is three feet wide by seventeen feet long. Each plot represents 1/1000th of an acre. There are 4 randomized replications of all varieties within each trial.
Testing
DLF tests against current products, competitor check and experimental varieties. Each trial runs for three production years. This rigorous testing gives an ability to identify varieties with superior yield, persistence, faster regrowth, exceptional forage quality and superior disease resistance using true head-to-head comparisons.
Harvesting
Legume trials are harvested three to four times per season. Grass trials are harvested two to three times per season at the appropriate maturities. We harvest using our RCI Engineering 36A forage harvesters.
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