Displaying items by tag: pasture

AN AGGRESSIVE regrassing programme could raise EBIT/ha from venison finishing nearly $1000/ha, judging by figures presented to a Deer Industry New Zealand focus farm field day last week.

Over 80% of New Zealand dairy farmers intend to renew run-out pastures this season, regardless of their financial outlook, reports a dairy farm survey released recently from CINTA.

Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) funding was announced today to pay for half of a $14 million research programme to deliver better seeds and plant species for farmers.

DON’T LET ample pasture now lull you into a false sense of security with winter just round the corner, says farm management systems firm Farmax.

MANY FARMERS have found it difficult to establish high-yielding, persistent pastures in recent years. There are significant advantages to establishing pasture after a maize silage crop. Problem weeds can be sprayed out twice – in the spring before maize establishment and in the autumn prior to regrassing. Growing maize also removes the normal feed source for pasture pests such as black beetle, Argentine stem weevil, pasture nematodes and grass grub. This interrupts their breeding cycle and reduces insect pressure on seedling plants during the pasture renewal process. Cropping prior to pasture renewal also reduces the carryover of older, lower-yielding ryegrasses.

INTEGRATING CATTLE with pasture renewal is helping Dannevirke farmer Neil Murley boost both sheep and beef returns.

"Pasture management is where the farming system starts," says Morrinsville dairy farmer Johan van Ras. In the order of things it comes before animal health because if you haven't got this right, your business can't perform.

C-DAX HAS won a 2011 Innovators Award for the pasture meter it developed with Massey University.