It’s in the effluent-irrigated area of the farm and was sown at the recommended rate with One50 AR37 ryegrass and clover seed.
Assen said he wants a persistent ryegrass that can be grazed to a low residual level and has opted for diploid perennial varieties that can be grazed down hard.
“I don’t like seeing wasted grass and cleaning up residuals.”
He has 394 cows on 110ha, 3.6 cows/ha or 3.9 cows/ha while 9ha of chicory paddocks are out of the grazing round. His strategy is to put less focus on milk/cow and more on milk/hectare.
“We want a simple system grass-based system producing 370-380kg milksolids/cow (upwards of 80% of average liveweight of 460kg)”.
In winter and spring he walks a platemeter through all paddocks every week and uses the MINDA Land and Feed software for recording pasture levels and creating a feed wedge.
“It’s easy to use once a farm map is online. I can rank all paddocks by grass growth,” he said.
His ryegrass selection is now based on endophyte – either AR37 or NEA2 – to overcome potential pest damage and he selects ryegrass cultivars from DairyNZ’s Forage Value Index as well as talking to seed reps and RD1.
The winning paddock was power harrowed after a chicory crop, seed was broadcast-sown with a motorbike spreader on March 20, rolled once and after six weeks sprayed with a selective herbicide to kill weeds and chicory regrowth without damaging the clover.
The initial grazing was done lightly and he avoided overgrazing by taking the herd off pasture and into chicory from the end of November.
From early December 200 tonnes of palm kernel was fed in the dairy’s exit yard and from mid-March to early June 132t of maize silage was fed in paddocks.
A grazing book keeps track of all grazings and farm walk readings and on the gateposts are ear-tags showing the variety name, endophyte and year of sowing.
Competition judges Tom Fraser, an AgResearch senior scientist, and Geoff Peake, a Te Awamutu dairy farmer, both members of the Pasture Renewal Leadership Group (PRLG), described the success of winning pastures as being due to careful pre-sowing preparation, correct choice of endophyte and good grazing management.
Fraser said they were impressed with the high levels of white clover and low weed content despite the impact of last year’s drought and noted that both the winning farmers had taken care to avoid over-grazing when pastures came under stress.
Two AgResearch scientists at a field day on the farm held in mid-February said there appeared to be a fair amount of pulling in the winning sward. Total grass cover in the paddock was estimated at about 70% by Agriseeds pasture systems manager Graham Kerr and this was attributed to a dry spell starting to take hold.
He said the grass plant’s basal stem is the source of regrowth and persistence and therefore a grazing residual of 4-5cm is required for better persistence.
Lack of time no excuse
As in the three previous years there were relatively few entries in the best pasture competition run by the Pasture Renewal Leadership Group (PRLG) for Waikato and Bay of Plenty farmers. Only 10 farmers entered their best paddock; five from each region who were evenly divided in the two pasture categories of best one-year and best three-year pasture.
John Assen won the one-year pasture prize of $1000 of seed and herbicide and told the field day more farmers should enter the competition as it takes little time to collate pasture establishment and grazing records and then walk the paddock with judges.
DairyNZ’s Chris Glassey said after the field day the industry was keen for the competition to continue and farmer surveys showed their strong interest in pasture persistence.
“But they tend to be modest and we usually find farmers need to be encouraged to enter this. Perhaps pasture persistence is less of a hot topic because many are now applying better management by standing cows off pasture during a dry spell.”
At the Taupiri field day there were only a handful of farmers among a 30-strong audience, mostly representing farm service companies, DairyNZ and AgResearch.
The PRLG was formed in 2009 in response to farmers’ concerns in Waikato and Bay of Plenty about the lack of pasture persistence in renewed pasture and overall pasture performance.
The grass in the winning paddock was supplied by Agricom, which is represented in the PRLG alongside parent company PGG Wrightson Seeds and Agriseeds. Other PRLG members are four representatives of DairyNZ, three of AgResearch, two farmers and two agricultural contractors.
Glassey said PRLG aimed to ensure farmers receive consistent messages on pasture persistence and renewal and that they are all on the same page.
“So we are taking the focus off failure and turning that around to look at the success stories.”
He said the PRLG members agreed and disagreed on different issues, “but it’s important to have those discussions if we are to see progress onfarm”.
