There has been a marked increase in the use of cereals for supplementary grazing and silage for the developing dairy industry in the South Island. Cereals provide high energy supplement in autumn/winter or can be used as a high fibre source in spring. Variation in yield potential in cultivar trials in Canterbury was assessed for autumn and spring-sown crops. The aim was to produce high quality cereal feeds with good yield potential by examining the variation among species and cultivar selections in well managed trials. Single-bite crops sown in early autumn in Canterbury provide up to 5.5 t/ha herbage DM yield with at least 17.5 % protein, 12% total soluble carbohydrate including starch (TSC) and metabolisable energy (ME) of 11.3 MJ/kg in mid-June. Multiple graze types (eg. Doubletake triticale) with similar winter productivity and quality to single-bite crops produced an additional 13.5 t/ha biomass for a silage crop. At ensiling, this cultivar had 9.3 MJ/kg ME with mean 19.5% total soluble carbohydrates. Spring-sown cereals for silage produced up to 20 t/ha. Harvest timing was a significant factor in the wide range in quality of herbage for ensiling. Cultivar means ranged from 7.0 - 12.8% DM for protein, 8.7- 31.6% DM for TSC and 8.3-10.5 MJ/kg DM for ME. More mature herbage had reduced organic matter digestibility and higher TSC but reduced ensilability at DM content in excess of 40%. Keywords: dairying, fibre, forage, herbage quality, metabolisable energy, near infrared reflectance spectroscopy, supplements

Cereal forages provide both arable and livestock farmers with high yields of high quality dry matter to use as either standing or conserved strategic forage supplements where deficits occur when animal feed requirements exceed pasture growth. Crop & Food Research has breeding programmes for both single and multigrazing forage oats and triticales, and both green-chop and whole-crop silage forage oats, triticales and barleys. It also has an associated cereal forage management research and tech-transfer programme to ensure cereal forages achieve their potential under New Zealand's variable soil and climatic conditions. This has led to the development of new cereal forage cultivars, an increased understanding of their dry matter and quality development, and management support packages including a cereal silage booklet and maturity predictor for whole-crop cereal silage