Grass and the seeds of success.

Nickerson Circle leys have been around now for 57 years, as a brand they have always been surnonomous with market leading quality, durability and high yield, something that is not easy to achieve all three with. I find it immensley satisfying to meet farmers who have got Nickerson leys that are still highly productive, even though they are 20 years old, or in some cases nearer 30 years old. Obviously they were put together right!

As a seeds specialist, it is pleasing to see recently established pastures like these below starting to deliver the promises made, I have yet to come across a pasture that hasn't done what it's stated to do. In all the years that Nickerson Circle leys have been going, there has only ever been two indiviuals that have done the mixture formulations, Simon Broddle is the current man and has been doing it for the past 15 years or so having progressed from the research side of grass breeding and mixture formulations. He is involved with all the midlands dairy discussion groups, part of the leading benchmarking farms and has had a healthy hand in one farmer winning the Dairy Gold Cup not just once, but twice! I don't think there is any other seedhouse in the UK that can stake such a claim. It is therefore reassuring to know that everytime a customer sows a bag of Circle grass seed, there is a lot of science that has gone into producing it. The fact that the mixtures are trialled on farms with recorded daily milk yields on grazed grass where the differences in palatability, energy, regrowth etc can produce differences over 2 litres of milk/cow/day means that only the best tested mixes end up in the bags.

 Then there is the fact that Nickerson Circle leys are the only grass seeds that are treated with with Thiram and PGA (a P&K polymer seed film coating) both which combine to give a plant whose rootmass is double that of conventional grass seed at 6 weeks of age, the most critical stage in any grass ley establishment. This one of the reasons why these swards are so thick.

Silver Circle, a really high yielding mid-term ley suitable for cutting and grazing.

Silver Circle with a rich clover base.

Pro-Plus, a short term, very high quality grass mix with both red and white clover.

Pro-Plus overlooking the Tamar near Plymouth.

These photo's were taken on Monday this week, 18th April having been heavily grazed all winter by both beef and sheep, with the animals withdrawn at the end of February. Given the winter and start to the year we have had, this is pretty impressive regrowth! So anyone who is short of grass and looking for forage, this grass is for sale!

There is a link on the right sidebar of the page to the Circle Ley page showing the full range of mixes available.