Establishing Chicory in pastures

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is a deep-rooted leafy herb suited to regions with higher than 550mm annual rainfall. In ideal conditions it can produce high dry matter (DM) yields of excellent quality feed year-round. 

Most growth is achieved through the warmer months, making it a suitable competitor and valuable addition to any tropical grass pastures, especially to improve overall pasture quality. 

Chicory can also be planted in a mix with short term ryegrass for high-quality winter feed as practised by many dairy farmers and beef fattening enterprises. 

Autumn usually provides adequate soil moisture for germination, increased follow-up rainfall, and less risk of summer grass and weed competition.

Land preparation

Chicory germinates best with good seed to soil contact; therefore, a weed-free prepared seed bed provides the most desirable establishment conditions. Direct drilling of chicory is also successful, provided weeds are controlled before planting through herbicides. The ideal preparation is to spray out the existing pasture in autumn, sow ryegrass or oats alone for year 1, then spray out again in October/November and sow a summer crop such as millet or sorghum before spraying out again before direct drilling the chicory seed in early autumn. This allows three opportunities to deplete the weed seed bank, and the use of a direct drill will reduce soil disturbance and associated weed seed germination.

Variety to sow

Chicory is summer-active, meaning good growth can be obtained during summer and autumn to improve pasture quality of tropical grass pastures regardless of variety. But if the intention is to over sow the chicory with ryegrass or another winter forage, plant a winter-active chicory variety because they can compete with the winter forage.

Planting depth

Chicory is best drilled into about 1-1 ½ cm of soil, with press wheels or a heavy rolling to ensure good seed to soil contact, unless it is wet clay soil. Drilling small amounts of chicory seed can result in uneven plant density with some seed drills. To address this, mix the chicory seed with prilled lime (14 kg prilled lime plus 6 kg Chicory seed) to improve sowing evenness. Set the seeder to deliver 20kg/ha of the prilled lime/chicory mixture.

Herbicides

Herbicide control is somewhat limited, but there are options for some broad leaf weeds with a herbicide containing Flumetsulam as the only active constitute (e.g. Broadstrike), and grass weeds with herbicides containing Clethodim as the only active constitute (e.g. Platinum). These products have an extended plant back period for ryegrass, so they cannot be applied after the middle of January in most cases, so check the label and seek advice. The only other way to control broadleaf weeds in chicory is to slash (topping) after grazing.

Establishing chicory in a mix

Establishment of Chicory in a mix with short term ryegrass over sown into summer grass pastures in autumn for winter feed only. 

Planting time: Late March to Early April in high rainfall areas. 

Sowing rate: 1-2 kg/ha chicory plus 35kg/ha short season Tetraploid ryegrass over sown into summer grass pasture. 

Planting chicory at 1-2 kg/ha with ryegrass at 35 kg/ha will provide good quality winter feed, primarily from ryegrass. While some chicory will survive into summer, its contribution toward quality summer feed will be minimal compared to chicory as a base pasture due to the loss of chicory plant density and size from ryegrass competition (shading) through winter/spring.

Planting ryegrass and chicory together for winter feed requires careful timing. Planting too early in March is likely to favour chicory as it’s generally too hot for ryegrass, whilst planting too late for Chicory in April will favour the ryegrass and result in dominance by the plant that is most suited to the temperature conditions at the time

Establishing chicory as a base pasture

There are several options for establishing chicory as a base pasture with or without short term ryegrass outlined below.

Option 1: A pure chicory pasture

Planting time: Late March to Early April in high rainfall areas. 

Sowing rate: 

• First year planting 6kg/ha chicory.
• Second year pastures over sown with 3kg/ha chicory. 

Chicory planted alone and managed as a pure stand through winter provides the best opportunity for its persistence. 

In addition to higher growth post ryegrass, the other advantages of pure chicory pastures are that it provides the opportunity to:

• plant chicory earlier in the autumn when it’s still too hot for ryegrass and, therefore, reduces the autumn feed gap
• control grass weeds using a grass specific herbicide
• have year-round high-quality feed.

Option 2: Chicory and ryegrass planted as a mixture

Planting time: Late March to Early April in high rainfall areas. 

Sowing rate: 

First year planting 6kg/ha chicory plus 20kg/ha short season Tetraploid ryegrass. 

Second year planting 3kg/ha chicory plus 20kg/ha short season Tetraploid ryegrass. 

Planting ryegrass and chicory together requires careful timing as planting too early in March is likely to favour chicory as it’s generally too hot for ryegrass whilst planting too late in April will favour the ryegrass. 

After emergence, a few light grazings at 10-14 days, will be required to prevent ryegrass from shading the chicory. The cow’s hooves’ damage to the young chicory is far less severe than the effects of shading by ryegrass. 

Reducing the ryegrass planting rate to 20kg/ha and short grazing interval (12-16 days) in the spring months of August and September will minimise ryegrass’s shading effect and allow chicory to make a greater yield contribution during this period and regrow better post ryegrass. 

Option 3: Chicory planted alone and oversown later with ryegrass

Planting time: Early March for Chicory and then plant ryegrass mid to late April in high rainfall areas.

Sowing rate: 

• First year planting 6kg/ha Chicory. Over sow short season Tetraploid ryegrass at 20kg/ha. 

• Second year planting 3kg/ha Chicory over sow short season Tetraploid ryegrass at 20kg/ha. 

The timing of the over sowing date for the ryegrass is important. A well-established chicory stand will be competitive against seedling ryegrass whilst temperatures remain high. 

The ryegrass seed can be broadcast before the first grazing of chicory about six weeks after sowing, providing the cattle with the opportunity to tread the ryegrass seed into the soil. This is a suitable method for dairy farms where good stock control and high stocking rates for short periods can be managed. An alternative is to graze the pure chicory pasture hard and then disk drill the ryegrass immediately after grazing. The disc drill does not cause any major damage to the chicory plants, and the negligible soil disturbance minimises weed seed emergence. 

Avoid excessively high ryegrass seeding rates when over sowing the chicory.

Graze the pasture frequently in the August/ September period to minimise the chicory’s time shaded by ryegrass. 

The use of a short season tetraploid ryegrass variety is important. The use of long season ryegrass varieties is likely to provide a longer period of competition for chicory in spring, further reducing chicory yield potential post ryegrass. 

Increasing chicory density

It is important to increase chicory plant density in the second year.

At 6kg/ha, the planting rates for chicory will result in greater than 25 plants per square meter established. In our subtropical environment, this appears to decline to 10 plants per square meter at the beginning of the second year. New Zealand recommendations are to re-sow chicory if the density falls below 25 plants/square meter. However, local trials suggest that a chicory plant density greater than 15 plants is adequate, presumably due to higher growth rates than New Zealand. 

To maintain a chicory plant population at above 15 plants per square meter, over sowing with 3kg chicory/ha using a disc seeder in late March appears to be the best option. The disc seeder’s advantage is good seed to soil contact with minimal soil disturbance and therefore less opportunity for weed seed to germinate. Damage to existing chicory plants from the disc seeder is minimal. Tyne drills will cause more disturbance, and this may cause some loss of the established chicory plants and a higher level of weed invasion.

Broadcasting chicory seed has not been a successful approach to increase plant density in the second year, presumably due to poor seed to soil contact. 

Chicory grazing management

The initial grazing should be at the 6-leaf stage. Research has found that, after the initial grazing, there is no ‘optimal’ regrowth stage to graze chicory, as the herbage quality remains high regardless of leaf number or days post grazing, for up to 30 days. 

The average Metabolisable Energy (ME) was 12.3 MJ/kg DM, Crude Protein (CP) 26 %, Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) 36 % and Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF) 23 %. 

The fact that grazing can be delayed by up to 30 days (slightly longer in winter/spring than in summer) improves flexibility in grazing intervals. However, cattle tend to graze the youngest inner leaves of the chicory plant preferentially and trample/waste the outer leaves, which increases as the grazing interval lengthens. This wastage at grazing can be minimised by hard strip grazing. 

The only real increase in ‘quality’ for chicory as it matures is in the Water-Soluble Carbohydrate content, which is desirable if chicory is to be conserved for silage. 

Adapting cows to grazing pure chicory pastures 

Chicory has a low fibre content; if it is to form a significant part of the cow’s diet, some hay, silage or summer grass pasture should always be fed (at least 1kg of hay or 3 kg silage per cow per day), particularly in the adaption phase of 6-7 days, to ensure the cow’s rumen adjusts to a low fibre feed. 

Another option to help cows adapt to chicory (or maintain adaption) is to first graze them for at least a week on a paddock that has a mixture of chicory and ryegrass or chicory and summer grass. Either one of these chicory pasture mixes will provide the fibre from the grass component. 

Cows grazing a chicory and grass pasture mix are not likely to require an adaption phase due to the companion grasses’ fibre content. An exception would be introducing cattle to chicory and ryegrass from poor quality mature tropical grass, in which case either restrict access or provide hay or silage for 6 to 7 days

Chicory quality 

The forage quality of chicory is similar to ryegrass through winter up to early spring with very high levels of Metabolisable energy (ME) and Crude Protein (CP). 

The Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) content of chicory is consistently about 6% units lower than ryegrass but still reasonably high compared to Brassica at 18% and Cereal grain at about 15%, the Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF) is more than adequate, however, chicory’s mineral content is generally higher than ryegrass (see Table 2).

In late spring, the fibre content of both chicory and ryegrass rises as ryegrass goes into its reproductive phase, and there is a commensurate small fall in ME. Chicory, however, continues to grow actively through summer and is much higher in quality than kikuyu, setaria or rhodes grass in terms ME and CP and lower in NDF, while most mineral levels n in chicory exceed those in tropical grasses in particular, available calcium which is over 10 times higher in chicory than kikuyu or setaria (see Table 2).