Grading lucerne: good for animals, good for your pocket

The uniform quality and grading of lucerne hay is important to ensure that animals are as productive as possible, according to Dr Gerrie Scholtz, consultant to the National Lucerne Trust and a lucerne specialist.

- Dr Gerrie Scholtz

In the past, lucerne was considered a low-value pasture or rotation crop, and was primarily used as a supplement. However, in recent decades, it has become valuable and profitable, competing successfully with many higher-value speciality crops.

Today, many producers approach lucerne production as a serious business enterprise, with careful consideration of costs, value and markets.

Whether you produce lucerne hay to sell or feed to your animals, correctly assigning the economic value of the crop can impact the profitability of your business. Therefore, there must be a quality and grading system for lucerne hay that is fair to both producers and buyers, and one that, ultimately, represents the product accurately.

As the production and handling of lucerne has changed over the past 50 years, the National Lucerne Trust (NLT) decided in 2021 to implement its revised lucerne hay grading table for all near-infrared spectrophotometers (NIR instruments) registered at the NLT Hay Quality and Grading Scheme (NLT-Scheme). This was necessary to establish a more uniform lucerne hay quality and grading system.

HAY QUALITY AND GRADING SCHEME

The grading and marketing of lucerne hay in South Africa has historically been performed by means of subjective evaluation based on factors such as colour, leafiness, smell, and the presence or absence of foreign material and mould.

Traditionally, major emphasis has been placed on the production of high yields of lucerne hay. However, over the past 30 or so years, greater priority was given to producing a higher-quality product for the market, as the ultimate test of lucerne hay quality is animal performance.