Friday, March 29, 2024

Relying less on bought-in feed

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A Northland trial which started last winter is aiming to give local farmers a guide to reducing imported feed while maintaining production. It’s comparing a grass-only system with two other farmlets, one where crops are grown and one where palm kernel is bought-in.
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The trial at the Northland Agricultural Research Farm at Dargaville has got off to a flying start with good grass growth through to the end of November, farm manager Karla Frost said. By November 18 the palm kernel farmlet was in the lead, having produced 519kg milksolids (MS)/ha and 191kg MS/cow, outpacing the cropping farmlet at 515kg MS and 189kg MS/cow and the grass-only block at 452kg MS/ha and 181kg MS/cow.
The grass-only farmlet had a lower stocking rate of 2.5 cows/ha with 71 cows having calved on 28ha. The other two blocks were stocked at 2.7 cows/ha with 78 cows on the same sized area.
The cropping farm grew 2ha of turnips, made up of Barkant and Green Globe varieties, 2ha of fodder beet and 2.5ha of maize silage. The palm kernel farmlet imported supplement as required, depending on grazing residuals, to optimise profit from pasture.
Paddocks were balanced across the farmlets so they all had the same resource and effluent application capability. At the start of the trial they had similar cows, condition score and pasture cover. All young stock were grazed off from November with no cows going off the farmlets through the trial unless there was an animal welfare issue. All could make hay or silage. The cropping farmlet started with 70 tonnes drymatter (DM) of maize silage available. It also started with a higher proportion of new grass paddocks because it would have greater pasture renovation. Mulching and oversowing Italian ryegrass would be used on kikuyu-based pastures and up to 200kg nitrogen could be used, some of which has been strategically used evenly over all farmlets so far.
Modeling with Farmax software predicted milk production would be 6% higher on the palm kernel farmlet than the cropping farmlet and 41% higher than the grass-only system. At a payout of $4.70/kg milksolids (MS) the cropping farmlet would be slightly more profitable, but at a $6/kg payout farm operating profit would be 8% higher on the palm kernel farmlet than the cropping farmlet and 35% higher than the grass-only farmlet.
Because of the good weather, pasture covers were higher than expected, despite lower use of supplements. The grass-only farmlet was 400kg DM/ha higher than predicted at 2000kg DM/ha. It was able
to make 2.5ha of silage in mid-October and shut up another 3ha in early November.
The cropping farmlet was able to use 6ha of new grass paddocks without damage, and feeding maize silage in June and July helped maintain pasture covers. In October 6.5ha was taken out for crops which effectively increased the stocking rate to 3.5 cows/ha. At November 18, 200kg DM maize/cow had been fed compared with the model prediction of 381kg DM/cow.
On the palm kernel farm less supplement than expected had been used with just 141kg DM/cow fed over a two-week period compared with a model prediction of 231kg DM/cow. Pasture covers were about 2200kg DM/ha at the end of November and grass silage was made on 3.5ha in October.
Much of the interest at the field day revolved around the recently sown fodder beet crop.
Frost said the aim was to feed 4-6kg DM/cow in March, April and May and rotate that area by planting turnips there this year. Local farmer Alastair McCann, who has successfully grown fodder beet, said if it was sown in spring Northland farmers could “almost guarantee failure”. It was best sown later into a well-prepared seedbed, free of trash, where any kikuyu had been sprayed out in autumn.
While turnips reached maturity and then started to decline, fodder beet showed an exponential growth rate even when being grazed. It was also not attacked by army worm or white butterfly.
Mating results showed the grass-only farmlet seemed to do best and the cropping farm poorest. Once-a-day milking was used for cows with a body condition score of less than 3.5 from two weeks before mating, which seemed to help boost submission rates.
Additional time for feeding out and cropping were calculated at $1400 to November 18 on the cropping farmlet and $1275 for feeding out on the palm kernel farmlet.

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