Rising costs of testing and consolidation of forage seed companies have led to declining entries in public forage variety tests and many universities have discontinued their testing programs. The remaining tests are also at risk of vanishing unless all stakeholders—producers, industry, and public universities—can agree on modifications that improve the economic viability of public variety testing programs. The AFGC has developed this survey to collect information on what stakeholders expect from forage variety tests and what acceptable costs would be in relation to the expected results. This fall, an AFGC working group will summarize the survey results and use them to draft recommendations for improvements to the current system. It is our hope that based on these recommendations, universities, extension services, and forage breeders can come together and develop a coordinated forage variety test network that will benefit the development and use of improved forage cultivars across the USA.
Please take the time to fill out the survey, which should take no more than 5 minutes. You are encouraged to forward the survey link to other forage stakeholders. Everyone affected by forages is welcome to offer input. The more input we have, the better our recommendations can become.
Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HPXZB3Q
Thank you, AFGC Forage Variety Trial Task Force