The Science Behind AR1 Endophyte
Identifying new endophytes is one thing. Making sure they do the job is another.
"We don't just take a look-see," says Lester Fletcher, the scientist in charge of animal testing AR1 and other endophytes for AgResearch. "It's not a matter of putting animals on trial pastures and saying they look good. We monitor them very closely. We weigh them repeatedly; we measure factors like heat stress, respiration, and body temperature to make sure we don't miss any sub-clinical health effects.
"We want to maintain the integrity of the AR1 product, and we've made a big effort with our science to make sure it stands up."
All the AR1 grazing trials run by Lester and his team use sheep. Because they're the smallest ruminant, they can be trialled in large numbers, ensuring results are statistically significant.
Every ryegrass variety commercially marketed with a novel endophyte is put through these trials before it can be sold to farmers. In the case of AR1, Lester and his team have now tested 22 different ryegrasses. And the results?
"We've never seen any adverse affects in terms of animal health. That's not just from our experimental work with sheep, either. Observations of dairy and beef grazing on farms are the same."
See the full list of Agriseeds varieties with Plus AR1 endophyte here.