Pasture growth rate for the last two weeks of August had been 45kg DM/ha/day, increasing to a phenomenal 54kgDM/ha/day for the first two weeks of September. Admittedly urea assisted but these were still well above average.
As a result at September 15 we were already 15% ahead of last year in production to date. The major problem was an excess of long pasture. However, if you must have a problem, this is a good one to have.
When it comes to how pasture fits into spring management I’ll begin with a bit of history which may resonate with older readers.
I’m working completely from memory, so I may be slightly out with some of the finer detail.
However, as they say, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I go back to the 1960s and early 70s. This could be fairly called the golden age of New Zealand agriculture. The Korean War wool boom of the 1950s had brought great prosperity to sheep farmers. Much of this was invested back in farm development, greatly aided by the advent of aerial topdressing.
As a result, by the 1960s there had been a big increase in stock numbers, particularly sheep. Marketing was simplicity itself. The United Kingdom was more than happy to take all we could produce and willingly accommodated all the increases in production.
As a result of all this the country had one of the strongest economies worldwide, and it was generally recognised this economic strength was dependent on agriculture, which was producing about 90% of our export earnings.
A high-powered think tank in the mid 1960s, the Agricultural Development Conference, concluded that unless livestock numbers continued to increase by 2% annually the economy would falter.
This was accepted, particularly by the government. Cabinet and caucus at the time had a high proportion of farmers so the industry could always be assured of a sympathetic hearing in the corridors of power.
The government of the day accepted the way forward was an ongoing annual increase of 2% in total livestock numbers.
This seems incredibly simplistic and naive by today’s standards, but with agriculture entrenched as NZ’s glamour industry and confirmed as the driver of ongoing national prosperity it made sense for the government to actively encourage and support its expansion.
One of the obvious channels for doing this was a big increase in research and advisory services carried out by the then Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF). The bulk of this research and extension work focused on the hill country.
There were many reasons for this – some logical but a lot due to bias, prejudice and more effective lobbying. Certainly it was recognised there was significant potential for further land development and management improvement in the hill country.
But underlying that were sociological factors. The sheep farmer was seen as the face of modern farming for setting the nation on the road to prosperity with the 1950s wool boom.
However, I suspect all this did was reinforce generally prevailing attitudes that, to put it crudely but succinctly, sheep farmers with the big farms were the aristocracy of NZ agriculture, whereas the dairy farmers were the peasants – epitomised by the fact they were usually derisively referred to as “cow cockies”.
Things have certainly changed since then haven’t they?
Apart from any bias in allocating resources the major problem with the drive to increased production was the reliance on increased stock numbers as the criteria for judging increased productivity.
Certainly, when progress is coming from land development and improvement, more stock numbers and greater production will generally go hand in hand.
But when increased stock numbers are applied to existing land, with no associated land improvement, the relationship becomes tenuous – and this was often the case in the 1960s and 70s.
Not only were increased stock numbers a poor criteria for judging increased productivity, but the reliability and accuracy of the data used was suspect.
The data was obtained from the annual statistical returns a farmer was obliged to furnish, and realistically, the degree of conscientiousness in filling in the forms would not have been high.
In the 1970s, in the face of declining sheep numbers, the farmer-friendly government introduced a sheep retention scheme, paying a bounty on sheep carried through the winter.
On paper this scheme was amazingly successful – whether it had an effect on actual production is dubious.
We now come to the point of this history, and I have to switch from general observations to personal experiences. In the early 1970s, as a MAF employee, I was transferred to Taranaki to take charge of its advisory services.
The major farming activity in the region was obviously dairying. After two or three years on the job I was called to account by the powers that be, the question being “What’s the matter with Taranaki dairying?”
Despite all the extra resources being put in, cow numbers and stocking rates had barely increased, while in other parts of the country sheep and beef numbers and stocking rates had shown a significant increase.
I said that instead of relying on Mickey Mouse stock numbers statistics they should go to the Dairy Board and look at the actual detailed production figures obtained from the dairy companies and published annually.
While cow numbers, and more particularly cows/ha, might not have increased much over the years, effective stocking rates in terms of cow equivalents/ha, had increased considerably.
Forget about actual cows/ha – generally our farms are very intensively stocked compared with 30 years ago. It takes about 7kg DM to produce 1kg milksolids (MS). If you take a 400kg cow from the 1960s doing 1kg MS/day production in the spring, her maintenance requirement will be 5.5kg DM/day, giving a total daily requirement of 12.5kg – not a difficult target.
Now take a 2013 cow of 450kg aspiring to produce 2kg MS daily in the spring. To do this her requirement will be 6 + 14kg DM per day = 20kg DM.
It’s a big ask to get this intake but if she can’t do it she won’t achieve 2kg MS/day – at least not on a sustainable basis.
Management in spring must be heavily biased towards the cow.
Worry about feeding cows to maximise intake long before you start worrying about looking after pasture.
You will have the rest of the season to tidy up mistakes in early spring pasture management, but mistakes in cow management will stay with you for the rest of the season.
