New grass to maximise returns

With dairy land prices increasing, Rukuhia farmer Kevin Henderson believes pasture renewal is the best approach to maximising production and return on investment.

He farms 176ha about 12km south of Hamilton and renewing pasture at an annual rate of 10-12 percent is his goal.

“I began this programme when I took over the family farm eight years ago because it had been very beneficial on my other farm,” he said.

“The majority of permanent pasture renewal occurs in the autumn and follows on from maize grown as a supplementary crop.”

After 10 years, Kevin plans to have the whole farm regrassed in newer varieties which will help meet his long-term goals.

“This year, following the drought, I decided to renew an additional four hectares through a grass-to-grass renewal process because of damage in the drought. The paddock was sprayed out and then ploughed before resowing in late April. The land here is quite peaty and, even following 160mm of rain, the peat component was almost shedding the moisture, so direct drilling is not an option here.”

Lime at 13t/ha was also applied before drilling to reduce soil acidity.

Most years, Kevin completes resowing by the end of March with a ryegrass and clover mix which has proved beneficial. Initially, diploid ryegrass varieties were sown but he has now changed to tetraploid varieties because of their enhanced palatability which reduces pasture maintenance through topping in spring and into summer.

Cows' favourite

“The cows like these species and getting them grazed down to a residual of 1600kg dry matter
(DM)/ha is no problem. The result is a significant increase in performance/cow. The results from grazing old, less palatable pastures don’t compare.”

The newer pastures have performed much better in the recent drought than the old ones, and Kevin is giving thought to what else he can add to the ryegrass/clover mix to assist growth during future dry periods.

Now running 530 Friesian cows, he employs a herd manager and two assistants to do the milking, running the two herds through a 36-aside herringbone dairy. During peak spring production, milking takes about two and half hours.

This season, Kevin expects production to be 500kg of milksolids (MS)/cow after losing milk production in this summer’s drought.

Long term he’s aiming for production of 1800-2000kg MS/ha.

The Henderson herd is also fed maize and palm kernel on a feed pad from February to late November. Each mob spends about two hours/day on the pad, reducing the amount of feed wasted compared
with feeding out direct onto the paddocks. It also reduces any damage to pastures that might occur during wet periods, although the peat land is very resilient to hoof damage.

“A further bonus of renewing with new varieties is the improvement in general cow health,” Kevin said.

Grass quality doesn’t drop off in late spring or in late summer to the same extent as old varieties and the benefit to the cows shows.

Maintaining fertiliser levels is also key to keeping the new pastures performing effectively. An application of 450kg/ha in autumn of Pasture Mag is followed in spring by 500kg/ha of Pasturezea.

“Feeding my pasture well is just as important as feeding my cows, so I don’t want to take short cuts.”

Published courtesy of Dairy Exporter - September 2008