Laird said the fodder beet had a good strike and yielded 30 tonnes/ha, which the family were happy with considering the dry summer and average growing conditions.
The family have a shelter for feeding out to cattle and Laird said both the deer and cattle looked like they were doing well on the fodder beet. In the past the family have grown barley, pasja, chicory and pasture.
In 2013 they reduced the area of pasja to grow 120ha of plantain.
“Most of it’s still growing alright but we think the clover’s driving the whole [plantain] system more than anything,” Laird said.
They haven’t sown pasja again. They did grow 40ha of grazing barley for a temporary summer crop as part of the regrassing programme, following on
from a barley crop and annual grass. Grazing barley provided summer feed before the area was sown back into pasture – predominantly permanent high-sugar grasses Abermajic and AberGreen.
Grass was sown in late March-early April. While reasonably slow to establish, Laird expected growth to take off after the first grazing in July.
Red clover was also included in the crop and pasture rotations with 8ha sown in spring behind barley and Italian ryegrass.
“Red clover fattens lambs like nothing else.”
Turnips were direct drilled on 25ha but didn’t strike well. Laird said the poor strike was a combination of slug damage and the seed not responding well to direct drilling. The turnips probably needed to be cultivated to get a better crop, he said.
“It was good for teaching the cattle what an electric wire is but we probably won’t use turnips next year, we’ll grow more fodder beet instead.”
This spring the family plan to increase the fodder beet crop to 50ha – half for lifting and half for grazing.
They have bought their own fodder beet lifter and Laird said next season will be easier now they know how to graze the crop.
They might sow some as early as September this time so they can start feeding it earlier, in March, and hopefully not lose too much yield as a result. They will grow 20ha of lucerne in spring, purely for silage so the fodder beet can be supplemented with a silage higher in protein.
Laird said the grazing barley worked well so they will probably grow that again, as well as 50-60ha of red clover mixed with some Caucasian clover and white clover, plus maybe a bit of plantain for added winter protein. This mix should work well for finishing lambs or making balage.
Farm facts
- Laird Farming Partnership
- Fordell, south of Wanganui
- Family operation between Trevor and Julie Laird and sons Steven and Fraser
- 930ha – owning 220ha, share farming 276ha, the rest in five lease blocks
- Breeding ewes and cows, finishing lambs and cattle, breeding hinds and stags for velveting
Sowing rates
- Red clover – 10kg/ha, or 6kg/ha mixed with other plants
- Grazing barley – 90kg/ha.
- Fodder beet – 90,000 seeds/ha
- Turnips – 2.5-3kg/ha
- Annual ryegrass – 25kg/ha
- Permanent pasture – 16kg/ha plus 6kg/ha clovers
Anne Calcinai followed up five past Country-Wide farmer case studies and their pasture renewal. See the others:
Alpes is one of the latest breeding lines from DLF Seeds. It was tested in New Zealand in 2013-14 and performed well. In spring 2014 DLF had a small amount of pre-release seed available that some farmers have used. There is no more pre-release seed left, so it is not available this year, but should be in the future.
