Getting back to basics with dairying

Various farm development and benchmarking programmes have shown that many of the key steps to improving profitability across farming sectors can come down to getting the basics right.

For Dairylink Ireland participants, areas of focus have included improving herd fertility, growing and utilising more grass, improving silage quality and rearing heifers to calve down at 24 months of age.

Several ongoing research programmes at the Northern Ireland-based Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) aim to provide scientific evidence to show the benefit of fine-tuning some of these key areas.

“Average annual grass growth on Northern Ireland dairy farms is around 7.5t DM/ha. However, there is scope on most farms to increase this by at least another 25%,” Dr Debbie McConnell from AFBI said.

The GrassCheck programme monitors weekly grass growth on 48 commercial farms across NI, including 20 dairy farms, as well as research plots at AFBI Hillsborough. Dr McConnell points out that although grazing conditions were difficult in the second half of 2017, dairy farms on the GrassCheck project grew 11.7t DM/ha on average over the year.

“The project is showing that growing 10t DM/ha/year is attainable no matter where you are and no matter what type of dairying system you operate,” she said. GrassCheck figures show that the best performance is coming from farmers that put cows into covers at 3,000kg to 3,300kg DM/ha and take them out at 1,700kg to 1,800kg DM/ha, Dr McConnell said.

“It also shows the benefit of measuring grass and developing a grass wedge. Some people underestimate grass covers by up to 500kg DM/ha when assessing them visually. Developing a wedge allows you to see what a surplus and deficit looks like, and what day-to-day management is needed,” she said.

On the soil fertility side, Dr McConnell said that getting soil pH right is the first step to making improvements. “It should be easy to get at least another tonne of grass by increasing pH from 5 to 6,” she said.

Heifer rearing

According to Dr Steven Morrison from AFBI, heifer rearing is another area for improvement on many dairy herds. He points to figures from AHDB which show the average age of first calving in Holstein herds in NI is 26.7 months.

Dr Morrison said that heifer-rearing costs increase by £2.87/head/day for every day calving is delayed over 24 months of age. This equates to an increased cost of £232 per head for heifers calving at the NI average of 26.7 months. He said that research shows that heifers that calve at two years old have higher lifetime yields and shorter calving intervals than later-calving heifers.

Dr Morrison said that regular weighing throughout heifer rearing allows farmers to keep track of growth. He said that breeding should begin at 13.5 months to have heifers in-calf by 15 months. “Knowing the mature weight of your cows is important to get heifers to 60% to 65% of mature weight by breeding,” he added.

Genetic index rising in 340-cow research herd

There is a 340-cow dairy herd at AFBI Hillsborough that is used for research studies relating to various aspects of dairying.

Cows are predominantly Holstein Friesian, although there are some crossbred genetics in the herd from a breeding experiment conducted several years ago.

Around 40% of the herd calve in the autumn and the remaining 60% are spring-calving.

A 48ha grazing platform is available for the dairy herd and spring calvers are generally used on grass-based experiments.

Turnout is usually around mid-March, although this was delayed until 10 April this year.

Groups

Autumn calvers are mostly used for winter feed research based on grass silage and concentrates. Cows in the herd are usually split into 10 to 15 different groups to facilitate different treatments in experiments.

In 2017, average milk sold per cow stood at 7,750 litres. However, individual performance can vary significantly, due to the wide range of different experiments.

For example, yields can run from 6,000 litres to 9,500 litres and concentrates fed in a lactation can range from 0.6t to 3.5t.

Milk composition

Milk produced in 2017 averaged 4.28% fat, 3.38% protein, with a somatic cell count (SCC) of 115,000/ml and a total bactocount of 18,000/ml.

Adjustments for milk quality and composition meant that 2.1p/l was paid above base price to the herd at Hillsborough last year.

The UK-based Profitable Lifetime Index (£PLI) is used to evaluate genetic merit at Hillsborough and the AFBI herd ranks in the top 1% in the UK with an average £PLI of £366.

“The long-term aim is to maintain the herd within the top 1% of UK herds for £PLI, while improving functional traits and milk composition,” Dr Conrad Ferris from AFBI said.

Bulls used are normally within the top 10 to 15 ranked sires for £PLI and they must have greater than 75% reliability, have positive predicted transmitting ability (PTA) for fat and protein percentage, be positive for fertility and negative for SCC.

AFBI dairy open day

An open day is being held at AFBI Hillsborough on 6 June to communicate the organisation’s latest research findings to dairy farmers. During a farm tour, there will be a series of presentations by AFBI researchers on a range of topics, including soil and nutrient management, dairy heifer rearing and grassland systems to maximise production. Following this, farmers can visit separate stands themselves to hear presentations and discuss research on other topics, such as forage management, herd health and managing slurry nutrients. There will also be displays from CAFRE, AgriSearch and Queen’s University Belfast.

Tours start from 10.30am and the last tour begins at 2.30pm. The event is free to attend and takes place at Large Park, Hillsborough, Co Down.

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