Alfalfa fibre technology, inoculant 11AFT, offers producers another choice in higher performance forage

CHATHAM, Ont., Feb. 7, 2014 – DuPont Pioneer announced the launch of Sila-Bac® brand 11AFT inoculant, the third product in the revolutionary DuPont Pioneer fibre technology platform. This product improves the digestibility of fibre and offers growers more consistent and stable silage. 11AFT will be available for the 2014 growing season.

“Alfalfa-specific 11AFT helps deliver a higher-quality haylage to dairy producers,” says Robert Larmer, livestock information manager, DuPont Pioneer. “11AFT increases fibre digestibility and improves forage energy density, producing an overall higher-quality, higher-value haylage in the ration.”

Pioneer launched its fibre technology platform in 2008 with 11CFT, a corn silage inoculant and 11GFT, a grass and cereal fibre inoculant, the following year.

“The fibre technology inoculants stimulate front end fermentation by rapidly dropping silage pH while retaining valuable nutrients,” Larmer said. “Because of the increased aerobic stability, nutrients are conserved on the backend during feedout. This is accomplished by reducing shrink and improving the silage face’s bunklife during feedout.”

11AFT showed zero silage heating and zero reduction in feed intake.

“The most exciting result of the DuPont Pioneer on-farm studies was the feed cost savings due to increased nutritional value of the forages. More nutrients from every bite of forage means less input costs on the concentrate portion of the ration,” says Larmer.

The alfalfa fibre technology enhances Pioneer’s crop-specific inoculant lineup, like 11CFT and 11C33 for corn silage, 11GFT for grass and cereal grains, and 11B91 for high-moisture corn or earlage. Paired the strong line-up of Pioneer® brand alfalfa varieties like 55Q27, 55V50 and 54Q32, 11AFT makes a high-performing combination for dairy producers.