Tohoku Agricultural Research Center, NARO

Forage Utilization Group

The Forage Utilization Group develops technologies for the high-quality preparation of feed rice, corn grain, and forage soybeans to replace the increasingly expensive imported concentrated feed, as well as techniques for efficiently feeding these forage to beef cattle. We also develop the technologies to help the recovery and development after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

We are now active in research on the "soft" grain silage (SGS) of feed rice and corn grain, a topic drawing attention in recent years, as an inexpensive feed storage and utilization method. SGS eliminates the high-cost drying process for storage. Until now, SGS preparations have employed the method of deaerating and sealing by hand by inserting vinyl bags inside the flexible container bags used to transport and store the feed. We are trying to improve the work efficiency and quality stability through the mechanization of this process using wrapping machines for round bale silage of forage.

Our goal is to use forage soybeans as a self-supplied protein source to replace alfalfa hay, for which Japan is import-dependent. To do so, we cultivate soybeans as forage legume and harvest the young soybeans before ripening to prepare whole-crop silage.

With respect to the undergoing restoration after the Great East Japan Earthquake, we are pursuing research to help resume the use of pastures affected by radiation from the accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant and the use of inclined cultivated land. Fertilizing pasture lands with large volumes of potassium to inhibit absorption of radioactive cesium, as done with rice and other farm fields, adversely affects cattle by damaging the mineral balance of the pasture grass. For this reason, we are developing techniques to eliminate the radiation without relying on potassium fertilization by various methods, including selecting pasture grass varieties that are unlikely to absorb radioactive cesium. In addition, for inclined cultivated land, not just pasture land, from which radiation was removed by replacing the topsoil, we are studying control methods based on the use of pasture grass as a cover crop to prevent soil encroachment, etc. until the land is ready for resumption of use.

Ensiling of forage soybean.The soybean plant for whole-crop silage is harvested using a machinery for corn-silage production when 50% of the leaves turned yellow.

Group Leader

SHINGU Hiroyuki

Group Members

Centers・Institutes