The experimental data indicate that the application of hop beta acids improves the preservation effect of LAB in suppressing clostridial growth in silages and thus demonstrates some potential for the combined use of plant-based antimicrobials and LAB.

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SummaryLolium perenne L. (Lp) is one of the most important and valuable forage plants in grasslands and an indispensable component of seed mixtures for meadows, pastures, ley farming, and re-seeding measures. A set of 39 different cultivars of Lp assigned to early, intermediate, and late maturing types were harvested and analyzed in weekly intervals during the first growth at AREC Raumberg-Gumpenstein, Austria. Significant differences between the heading groups were found with a time lag of 6 days for crude protein content and of up to 11 days for digestibility of organic matter and energy concentration. The early heading cultivars significantly differed from the other two groups, which performed comparably and were more resilient in terms of quality aspects for a longer time. Within all three heading groups, a strong variation could be noticed, leading to some unexpected overlapping. Our results indicate that the current assignment of Lp cultivars to the heading groups is imprecise and should be improved by advanced recordings and by analyses during the time of the official variety testing period. This may lead to a more sufficient selection of Lp cultivars for grassland mixtures, and therefore, increase the quality of home-grown forage.

Summary Two in vitro methods were tested to establish their potential to predict the metabolizable energy (ME) content of forage legumes: the Tilley and Terry (TT) method and the pepsin-cellulase method (CM). Different samples of white clover (Trifolium repens L.), red clover (Trifolium pratense L.), kura clover (Trifolium ambiguum M. Bieb.), lucerne (Medicago sativa L.), and birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.) were derived from field trials with several defoliation systems at two sites. The CM was more precise due to its repeatability within and between analysis runs, but eventually overestimated the ME contents of the samples, as it was shown for the standard samples with known in vivo digestibility. ME contents were found to be consistently higher based on CM, with a difference of up to 1.5 MJ ME/kg DM compared to TT. Although white clover was, in general, the species with the highest ME content, the influence of legume species over all cuts and defoliation systems was inconsistent. Such observations may influence the method of choice for ME estimation for large datasets.

The propagation and seed multiplication of site‐adapted and drought‐tolerant grass varieties are essential to provide high‐quality forage in temperate grasslands. A field experiment was conducted from 2016–2019 on orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) in the province of Styria, Austria. Treatment effects of sulfur, fungicide application and a plant growth regulator, singly and in combination, on seed yield and its reproduction parameters were tested under two different fertilizer nitrogen management systems (single application [N1] and split application [N2]). In terms of seed yield, a combination of all treatments compared to fertilization‐only treatment showed a significant increase of 22% under N2 fertilization. In terms of the thousand seed weight, the fungicide treatments and a combination of all treatments performed significantly better than other treatments within N1 and N2. The use of fungicide and a combination of all treatments also significantly increased the germination capacity in N1. Therefore, a combination of all plant protection treatments is recommended to optimize seed yield, thousand seed weight and germination capacity.