Welcome to the Seed Force website
Seed Force was set up in Australia in 2006 to provide a source of world class forage genetics, 100% researched in the local environment. The company has a dominant Australasian shareholding with considerable experience in the seed industry.
Over the past five years we have screened over 8,000 plots covering 19 species at multiple sites in all six Australian states to find new forage options that can deliver improved performance and profitability over existing commercial varieties.
The upgraded web site can provide you with all the information that you need to improve both productivity and profitability.
Seed Force Values
1. Seed Force is dedicated to the positive growth of agriculture and the stakeholders associated with it.
2. Seed Force is committed to developing and introducing genetic innovations that enable farmers to achieve sustainable production and profitability.
3. Seed Force commits to the integrity of the information of its products.
4. Seed Force is committed to maintaining ethical and fair relationships and interactions with customers, suppliers and staff.
5. Seed Force operates robust, efficient, future proofed business systems that ensure its clients needs are effectively serviced.
Delivering greater value from seed
With continued margin pressure on livestock industries, it is critical that producers match the genetic potential of their animals with the efficiency of feed conversion to meat, milk or wool. The main cost of production for livestock producers is the feed base.
This cost can be significantly reduced by increasing productivity per hectare to dilute the cost of feed per kg of live-weight gain or litre of milk. To achieve that forages need to be evaluated for their ability to deliver greater profits, and that means measuring profit drivers not just forage yields.
Seed Force has spent considerable time screening and measuring yield, quality and water use efficiency of various forage options and cultivars with the aim of marketing options that can lift the bar in terms of production efficiency compared to current commercial cultivars. And our research into management practices such as sowing rate, sowing time, fertiliser response and grazing guidelines continues to deliver better information to create greater value at the farm gate for livestock production.
R& D linkages
Through its linkages with the RAGT group Seed Force has access to a world class breeding program covering 24 species. This covers temperate annual and perennial grasses, forage and bio-fumigant brassicas and perennial legumes.
Seed Force also has close ties with other world class breeding programs from Europe, North America, South America, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia covering annual grasses, annual legumes, perennial grasses, perennial legumes, forage cereals and forage herbs.
Through our extensive regional trial network, we have tested new plant genetics from these programs against best commercial cultivars. Where they have performed above existing material we have brought them to market, and where they are inferior, have passed the information back to those plant breeders to drive their breeding programs to new levels of performance.
So in effect Seed Force is providing independent screening and evaluation of forages for their suitability to differing environments in Australia.
Regional agronomy support
Seed Force has invested in a team of regionally based agronomists who can work with retail agronomists, consultants and producers on farm to get the most productivity and profitability from their farms.
Animal Performance CalculatorTM and Relative Forage Ratings
For many years seed has been sold in Australia based on dry matter yield comparisons between varieties. Producers and their advisors have been using this information to help decide which varieties might provide better returns in an environment of continuing decline in producers’ terms of trade.
Nutritionists have been aware of the flaws in this approach, recognizing that 1kg of dry matter is not always of the same quality and that quality drives intake which can have a large impact on production and profit. Animal trials have been utilized to confirm this, but they are expensive to run and can only test a small number of varieties under one set of trial management conditions.
Livestock industries have developed EBVs (Estimated Breeding Values) to help producers evaluate animal genetics for use in their flocks and herds, but these have not been available for pasture plant genetics.
Seed Force has seen this gap within the market and has developed the Animal Performance Calculator TM with input from agronomists, nutritionists and agricultural economists. The program uses yield and a number of quality measurements with formulas to estimate animal performance based on various assumptions that can be changed within the model to make it relevant to local conditions.
It also uses the principles of Gross Margins to evaluate profitability of different decisions under differing scenarios. The program can be used to rank the value of varieties under any given set of assumptions. It can also be used to test the profitability of agronomic and pasture management decisions.
The calculator can be used in two basic ways:
• As a basic tool to input various assumptions and scenarios and test these under a simple calculator format. This system uses average data across the year for various options.
• As a more complex system used to estimate and rank the value of various pasture options given the yield and quality data prior to each grazing period.
With this information we can develop a ranking of varieties or Relative Forage Ratings (RFRs), similar to livestock EBVs so that producers and advisors can now make better informed choices.
These RFRs are available for Seed Force varieties that have first undergone forage yield analysis to provide good feed production. Forage nutritive value testing is undertaken prior to each grazing to complete the information required for modeling.
Further forage nutritive value analysis is being undertaken for those new forages that have passed the yield evaluation test.