Milk pick-up off to a slow start
Fonterra says its milk collections for July were 2.4% lower than July last year.
The chicory, with its tap root, could access soil moisture from depth producing high yields regardless while ryegrass, with its shallow root system, struggled.
The drought, and some prolonged periods without rain this summer, have prompted more farmers to turn to the crop as a summer break-feed to boost cow nutrition.
Jack and Antoinette Steegh, Tirau, are among them. They milk 260 cows on 150ha and last week hosted a Smaller Milk and Supply Herd (SMASH) field day on the farm, attracting about 70 farmers. Last year they planted sorghum but the results were poor, so, three months ago they switched to chicory.
Steegh told the SMASH field day he was very happy with the results so far and he’ll be planting a further 4ha.
His cows are on 28-day rotation and spend 10 of those days munching chicory. He says the cows love it and milk protein production is up when they’re on it.
Chicory has high tolerance to insect pests but Steegh has used slug baits in one paddock after 10 slugs were found under a sack placed in the crop.
He also grows maize, and the combination of crops works well.
“They complement each other. Chicory is a summer feed and maize is fed to our cows during autumn,” he told Rural News.
“As the chicory is dying off, the maize comes aboard so it works really well.”
DairyNZ says if chicory is to make up a third of the cow’s diet, sow 5-6ha per 100 cows. It also says chicory is best as a re-growth special purpose summer crop sown with clover. In northern regions it warns not to expect more than two productive years from the crop, and to under-sow grass in the first autumn.
DairyNZ’s research shows if cows are fed 20 to 40% of their diet as chicory, there’s a 17% lift in milksolids production.
Agricom northern North Island sales manager Ben Trotter, who spoke at the SMASH field day, says what chicory does for the cow is allow it to produce more microbial protein.
He believes the crop works best as a 6-month summer crop but when the firm was trying to increase uptake of the crop in Waikato it had mostly been grown as an 18-month crop.
“I’m not saying that it can’t be done with the right cultivars but I strongly encourage that if you are taking it through 18 months the crop must be carefully managed through winter. It should not be grazed when soils are wet,” he stresses.
Even if soil damage is avoided, typically yields are slightly lower in the second year, he adds.
