Farmer Writes: signs of summer in Canterbury

After another mixed week of weather, signs of summer seem to be finally arriving to mid Canterbury as we swap the rain gear for factor 50 and gallons of water.

With another deluge of rain falling last Thursday night/Friday morning, the weather has turned dry and warm since, with temperatures over the last few days hitting 25 and 26 degrees Celsius. As a results, growth conditions are once again optimal for grass to do its thing and provide an abundance of high dry matter, quality feed for our lactating ladies.

Having contracted our winter grazing provider, a neighbouring tillage farmer, to drill oats into 20ha of the ground we grazed kale off over the winter gone by, we took the decision to mow the crop this week once the weather came dry. The idea of growing this crop of oats is to provide a buffer feed for the dry cows next winter while they graze the kale, with one the possibility of targeting lighter condition cows with this feed one option that is being considered. The crop itself was mowed at a leafy stage, (agronomy and the appropriate terminology have never been a strong point) with the whole crop being cut after 10 weeks of growth, prior to its “going to seed” stage.

The power of the wilt

I walked the crop 24 hours after it was mowed last Sunday morning and I couldn’t get over how wet it was, but another 48 hours of wilting on top of that has made a huge difference to dry matter and hopefully feed quality too.

On Tuesday morning then, we put this crop into a pit, along with some surplus paddocks from around the farm, as we attempt to stay on top of this latest spurt in grass growth. Following the removal of this crop, later in the week kale will be direct drilled into 40ha to meet the remainder of our herds wintering requirements.

Interestingly, during the harvesting of this winter feed, each truck drawing in the wholecrop weighed in at a portable weighbridge prior to tipping at the stack. These weight records will be aligned to feed quality test results when available and will dictate the cost of the crop to our farm.

Feed in New Zealand, whether grass silage, barley, maize or anything else that is commonly used as supplement in these pasture-based systems, is all traded on an agreed price per kg/DM, with nothing sold per bale, per load or per acre.

Contractors and feed consultants have the expertise and equipment to quantify and test the quality of a feed, which results in a very transparent market I feel. There’s no messing or guessing involved, with each party knowing exactly what is being traded.

Buckraking the silage on the pit

On top of allowing a fair price to be agreed between the grower and our farm, the weighbridge results, combined with feed tests, will also give management hirer an accurate figure for the amount of available feed they have in the stack. This is invaluable knowledge in preparing a winter feed budget as plans can be made, as opposed to guessing how much to feed out each day.

On the breeding front, we achieved a 93% 21-day submission rate, with the number of returns relatively low at the minute. With four weeks of AI almost complete, weather conditions have finally become more favourable towards cow performance, which we expect to further aid heat detection and conception rates.

Back in the shed, the herd is averaging 1.95kg/MS/day (23.87litres, 3.86% protein, 4.14% fat), with the latest SCC at 68,000. After taking out 18ha of surplus grass, which we put into our pit of oaten wholecrop, our AFC now stands at 650kg/ha.

With strong growth anticipated as a result of improved temperatures and ideal soil moisture levels, we felt confident in dropping the 18ha out of the rotation and lowering our AFC to maintain grass quality ahead of the cows as we come into the beginning of summer.

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