Thursday, March 28, 2024

Beet the drought

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Waikato dairy farmers should opt for cost effective onfarm crops such as fodder beet that can thrive in drought conditions, Tatua land resources manager Wayne Pamment says.
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Farmers will have crystal-clear memories of dry summers of recent years. With the recent drop in milk payout forecast, another drought would hit hard and farmers should focus on growing cheaper feeds this year.

Fodder beet was a cheap crop with outstanding yield possibilities and high metabolisable energy (ME) that could extend lactation through the summer and early autumn months, he said.

“The Waikato is hitting us with droughts every year and farmers need to start growing bigger crops combined with better quality and stop relying on expensive supplements. I reckon this is the crop.”

The Tatua dairy farm at Morrinsville trialled 2.5ha of the crop last season. It exceeded expectations, growing 34.5t DM/ha by March 6, and was estimated to have exceeded 45t DM/ha by June when the last of it was fed to dry cows.

When Tatua farm manager Shannon Ryland started feeding the fodder beet, milk production lifted immediately by about 300-400 litres a day. Milk production for April equalled March, which showed the effect the beet was having before they dried off in May due to cow condition.

“We would have dried off a month earlier otherwise. In a high payout year, that equates to a big chunk of your return,” Ryland said.

Fodder beet costs about the same as maize at $2000/ha or 7-8c/kg DM with fertiliser, but the crop’s potential is superior, Pamment said.

Its ME content is higher, it holds its energy levels, there is no harvesting or storage cost if eaten in the paddock, and there are potentially more tonnes per hectare of crop. Fodder beet could also survive a drought with its 2m tap root.

The ME value of fodder beet is 12, Seed Force forage specialist Ben Leong said. Typically it had always been viewed as winter feed, but the Tatua farm had shown the benefits of the crop to overcome feed shortages through dry summers.

The Tatua crop was an outstanding yield, mainly due to high soil fertility levels, but most farmers could expect a good crop, even with a lower fertility level or a lower pH.

“Anywhere from 5.8 pH upwards is pretty good. If farmers are using lime, a crop of 28-30t DM/ha is still very achievable.”

North Island farmers were showing strong interest in growing fodder beet this summer, Leong said.

Few farmers had experience with it, but had seen its potential of and with the drop in the milk payout forecast, it was a good solution for farmers to keep costs down, he said.

“In my opinion, you should be growing more of your own crops. The great thing about fodder beet is you can save it for winter if not needed and it maintains its energy level.”

The Tatua crop was planted in October and would be sown back into pasture in spring. Taking one paddock out of grazing for a year was easily justified given the yield and quality, Pamment said.

“The fodder beet paddock only equated to about 1.5% of our 200ha milking platform out of grazing rotation so it’s not a big amount.”

The 200ha farm milks 550 cows and is classed as a System 1. It relies on pasture and crops grown onfarm and doesn’t import supplement feed.

Tatua will plant 15ha of fodder beet this October to feed onfarm and sell some to a neighbour.

It was a better choice for the farm system than chicory and turnips because chicory had lower yield and turnips had a short feed window before they started decreasing in quality, Pamment said.

“With chicory you only get one good feed off it and turnips never seem to be ready when you need them. You’d often get a great crop of turnips the year you didn’t need it. This crop is completely different and has a lot of flexibility around grazing times. It solves a lot of these issues.”

If farmers practised best management to establish the crop and through cow transition they could expect good results, he said.

Tatua sprayed the paddock out with glyphosate and left it for two weeks before cultivation. They used a deep ripper to break up any soil pan, power harrowed twice, and finally rolled the paddock before sowing. Ground preparation, weed control, and monitoring the crop until canopy closure was critical with fodder beet.

Seed Force representatives visited the farm regularly until the crop was established.

“From ground preparation to canopy cover, that’s where they were invaluable. If you get that first 6-8 weeks right, you turn out with a monster crop.”

A slow transition onto the crop was equally important to avoid issues with rumen acidosis. Ryland slowly adjusted the herd by throwing about 15 bulbs into the paddock each night to begin with.

“These cows had never seen a bulb before, not even turnips, so it took them a few days to get into it,” Ryland said.

“It took us about 10 days to transition cows on, slowly increasing from 1kg/cow up to 5kg/cow. Once you’re past that point it’s like watching kids in a candy shop, the cows just loved it.”

The cows would go on to a 0.5m break in the paddock for up to two hours after milking. They utilised the feed and there was zero wastage.

“Once they were getting the energy hit, they would run down to the paddock to get to the fodder beet.”

After the cows were dried off in May, there were still bulbs left that were break-fed during late May and early June, up to 10kg/cow, which was a good feed to put condition on the cows before calving.

A monster crop

Lincoln University veterinary scientist Dr Jim Gibbs is usually very suspicious when hearing stories about big crops, but when he visited the Tatua, the crop lived up to its reputation.

“In this case they were right on, it was a monster crop,” he said.

Tatua had exceptional soil fertility that contributed to the 45 tonne crop, but all Waikato and upper North Island farms had potential to grow bigger fodder beet crops than the South Island because they could plant the crop a month earlier in warmer conditions, he said.

“It’s a really promising area.”

The real growth area for farmers in the Waikato would be using fodder beet as shoulder feeds in the autumn and spring instead of maize and grass silage, he said.

Not only was the yield potentially higher, but farmers would get better utilisation, making it a more cost-effective feed.

Maize silage utilisation could drop from 80% on a good day to 50% in the wet, which made it an expensive feed.

In spring Gibbs is starting a fodder beet club to advise dairy and beef farmers how to grow and feed the crop.

Visit www.fodderbeetclub.co.nz

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