From dry to damp: getting your pastures ready
New Zealand farmers know that pastoral fortunes can shift rapidly once summer’s extreme dryness gives way to cooler, wetter autumn conditions.
Presenting a paper on ‘Opportunities to improve grazing management’, DairyNZ’s developer feed and farm systems Sean McCarthy said a survey of seven farms in the lower North Island found 49% of paddocks were grazed before the optimum 2-3 leaf stage of ryegrass, and 62% were grazed either before or after the recommended (2600-3200kgDM) biomass trigger.
Post-grazing overall 48% of paddocks missed the target residual band of 7-9 clicks on the platemeter, with two farms frequently over-grazing and two frequently under-grazing. Of the other three that got it right more times than not, even the best was only on target two-thirds of the time. “Of course the residual is often a symptom of what happens before,” said McCarthy.
A DairyNZ colleague had run a similar monitoring exercise on two farms in Canterbury and found “just the same thing,” he added. “One farm tended to over-graze, the other tended to under-graze.”
To get grazing heights right – entry levels and residuals – clarity is needed onfarm about what the targets are and who is responsible for meeting them, and those people need the skills and motivation to make it happen, said McCarthy.
A wider survey of 300 farms found 15% use some form of measure to gauge residuals, 15% go by the clumps that are left and about half visually assess residuals.
McCarthy said visual assessment capability had been checked during discussion groups and nearly half were out by more than 100kgDM/ha – either over or under – in assessing what was left. “That’s quite a substantial amount when you’re making decisions on feeding based on dry matter.”
McCarthy said about half of dairy farms measure pasture eaten/year.
“We need to ensure more and more farms are doing that. We need to provide the motivation to grow and harvest more pasture.”
To that end DairyNZ has a ‘focus on pasture’ initiative underway aiming to improve pasture management capability and provide a calculator for a daily pasture eaten figure.
“There is plenty of opportunity to improve grazing management out there… Potentially there’s $600/ha there for the taking. That’s about $85,000 for the average dairy farm.”
Masterton Next Year
In keeping with its north-south alternation of conferences, the NZGA heads to Masterton next year, Nov 3-5, with the theme: ‘Farming into the future: innovation, technology and efficiency’.
