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Weekly Notes - 10th January 2022

Feed conditions continue to be tight for all the farmlets with lack of rain and below demand growth rates over the last few weeks.Key Decisions last week:• All herds will receive straight PKE for the next week as we wait on a new load of PKE: barley blend for the kale herdso the next batch of the blend will be 70%PKE: 30% barley due to a supply issue with barley. The previous blend has been a 50:50 mix• PKE is now required for the LI FB herd based on a drop in average pasture cover and the ...

Weekly Notes - 6th January 2022

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Weekly Notes - 31st December 2021

Wishing all our followers a very Happy New Year. Thank you for following our research journey during 2021 and best wishes for 2022. Here's hoping for a more normal year, whatever that might look like . We look forward to sharing more results and our plans for the new farm systems comparison in 2022.Key decisions:- all herds pushed out to a 30+ day rotation but utilising the new grass paddocks to give a few more days for old pastures to reach the required pre-graze mass- Std and LI Kale cows are ...

Weekly Notes - 23rd December 2021

The Southern Dairy Hub would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! While it has been another challenging year on many fronts across the region and nationally we are proud of what we have been able to achieve in 2021. We are looking forward to what 2022 brings and all the exciting things we hope to accomplish!Key Decisions this week:• We will start to push the round length out to 30 days as pasture cover allows• The clover is really starting to flourish in all four far...

Weekly Notes - 16th December 2021

After reviewing the 7-10 day weather forecast on Thursday we debated the options for the 4 paddocks that had been stepped over for conservation the previous week. It was decided that the likelihood of making good quality baleage was low and if left for another 7-10 days before mowing the regrowth will be very slow. The decision was made to pre-graze mow them and identify paddocks further down the wedge to step over for conservation.Key Decisions this week:• Growth rates are down across the dis...

Weekly Notes - 9th December 2021

Preparation is well underway for the holiday period to make sure everyone has a good break after another busy year and challenging spring.Today was the last day of AI for the 2021-22 season with bulls arriving on the farm and going out with the herds. This year we will be running 3 bulls per mob (1 bull/60 cows for the Stds and 1 bull/55 cows for the LI) and rotating the remaining 6 in and out as required.o For the first few days we will run an extra bull per herd as this period corresponds to 3...

Weekly Notes - 2nd December 2021

Key decisions this week: • The team have been tasked with being proactive with dropping paddocks out of the round that are above the pre-graze target for 3 feeds.o Why: this is to regain full control over pasture quality in the coming week before heading into summer.• The visual and plate meter data are much more aligned this week, indicating that the lignification in the stem is not as prominent as in previous weeks.o Why: we asked the contractor to adjust the height of the mower for the s...

Weekly Notes - 25th November 2021

Controlling pasture quality continues to be a priority again this week, especially for the LI farmlets that are hanging out for their second nitrogen application.• Topping will be used to maintain pasture quality, however rather than topping whole paddocks, this week the team will try the “race track” method.Why: We are finding that the paddocks that have been either topped or cut for baleage take longer to come back into the round than those being grazed. By only doing the outer half or i...

Weekly Notes - 18th November 2021

Was interesting to see the effect of the rain and cold temperatures last Saturday on the water intake of the herds. More than 50% of the cows with the Smaxtec boli in them alerted for low water intake.Key Decisions this week:• Over the next week the farm team has been challenged with being aggressive when it comes to taking paddocks out of the round if they are above the pre-graze targets to ensure that the round length remains at 25 days.• Due to the stem elongation and seedhead emergence ...

Weekly Notes - 11th November 2021

We have just entered the really challenging stage of the season for our lower-impact farmlets. First round N is run out and the next application is 3 plus weeks away, ryegrass is heading, first-round silage paddocks are coming back into the grazing window and growth is erratic. This week we have paddocks too long for our current rotation length that need to be stepped over but we can see a potential deficit in 7-10 days' time. After lots of debate we decided to get cows grazing paddocks at the r...

Weekly Notes - 4th November 2021

Mating is off to a good start this week with good daily submission rates, helped along a bit by the first of our CIDR cows coming on. Our first cut of baleage was done this week with 14 pdks on the milking platform and a few on the support block conserved. Criteria for taking paddocks out of the round for conservation include:o Pre-graze mass – above 3400 for the Std farmlets and 3100 for the LI farmlets, although several paddocks were taken out this week have had covers more than this.o Previ...

Weekly Notes - 28th October 2021

With calving finishing last week we are straight into preparation for mating which starts on the 1st of November. Decisions this week have continued to focus on managing surplus pasture, achieving residuals and fully feeding cows as they head into mating.Key Decisions:• 7 paddocks have been stepped over for conservation (2 in LI FB, 2 in Std FB, 2 in Std Kale and 1 in LI Kale) and these will be mowed for baleage next week.• Discretionary topping will be used for individual paddocks that don�...

Weekly Notes - 21st October 2021

We are happy to announce that our last cow calved today! This is good timing while we balance time off for staff before mating commences. Decisions this week have been around how to increase the quality of pasture and what to do with paddocks that did not hit residuals in previous rounds due to trying to protect them from pugging damage.Key Decisions:• The low-quality pasture base in some of these paddocks will be topped post-grazing to reset residuals and ensure high-quality regrowth, especia...

Weekly Notes - 14th October 2021

We had some super interesting topics and guest speakers at our field day event this week including Angela Reid, a dairy farmer in Five Rivers, talking about reducing N fertiliser on her farm and maintaining production and performance; Brendan Malcolm discussing catch-crops for cleaner water trial underway at SDH, and of course Dr Dawn Dalley and Louise Cook who spoke through our spring update, lower impact farm systems results from the last 3 seasons, future farms systems research, and the Commu...

Field Day October 2021

Northern Southland farmer's reduced N for no pasture growth loss, and catch crops for cleaner waterMissed getting to the Field Day?  Download our handout in the link below...

Weekly Notes - 7th October 2021

We can already see the benefits from last week’s decision-making, along with increasing temperatures on our pasture growth rates and average pasture covers but we are not out of the woods yet.Key Decisions:• Implementing 10n7 has had its challenges with regard to pasture allocation and inshed feeding but the team is slowly putting systems in place and getting their head around the complexities of this milking frequency. The farm team has been basing their pasture allocation and paddock fenci...

Weekly Notes - 30th September 2021

Key decisions:• In the interest of preserving BCS and feeding the cows as best as we can with current feed resources, we have decided to put all the herds onto 10n7 milkings for a period of approximately 3 weeks until pasture cover and the weather improves allowing us to look forward into the future and match feed supply and demand.• All alternative milking frequencies were considered i.e. full OAD, 3 in 2 and more traditional 10n7 however we have settled on a modified 10 milkings in 7 days ...

Weekly Notes - 23rd September 2021

Key Decisions this week:• All herds will move to 3 grazings per paddock (1.9 ha/day) for the majority of the paddocks• If herds are not cleaning up paddocks the inshed feeding will be turned off for the afternoon if required with the aim of hitting residuals so that mobs don’t need to go back for a cleanup grazing as this takes time and creates extra walking increasing the risk of lameness.• The LI FB herd have used significantly more baleage than was in their feed budget and has a limit...

Weekly Notes - 17th September 2021

It has definitely been a challenging week on farm with 51 mm of rain being recorded. Ensuring cows were well fed and minimising damage to pastures has been a key priority and as such, we decided to put all herds onto OAD milking last Saturday (11 September) for an initial period of 5 days. This allowed more time for the team to supplementary feed out to the four milking herds, 2 springer herds, 2 late dry herds and the colostrums and reduced cow movement in and out of paddocks.Key Decisions this...

Weekly Notes - 2nd September 2021

Key decisions this week:• Due to the weather our pasture utilisation has dropped but we continue to select paddocks based on ground conditions and try different techniques to minimise pasture damage. Even with the use of supplements to hold our round we have still used 3.5-5.4 ha more per farmlet and 18ha more across the whole farm than the spring rotation plan.• Next week’s springer draft will most likely result in kale and FB springer mobs joining together. We need to continue feeding th...

Weekly Notes - 26th August 2021

Calving has slowed a bit in the last few days but with between 59 and 69% of the individual herds having calved, there is definitely no shortage of work for the team.Fine-tuning our supplementary feed management has been a focus of the team this week as feeding at this time of year can have a large impact on successfully setting up the lactation. It is a fine balance between making sure cows are not underfed, causing pasture damage and limiting production, but also wanting to achieve acceptable ...

Weekly Notes - 25th August 2021

Key decisions this week include:1. Under Covid 19 level 4 the farm is now closed to all non-essential visitors. Strict hygiene and social distancing protocols have been implemented where practical masks are available for use when in close confinement. Technicians are only on site for farm walks at this stage2. Milkers have been split into their farmlets and are now being milked TAD.3. Colostrums will stay on OAD milking4. With uncalved heifer numbers declining the heifer springers will be combin...

Weekly Notes - 12th August 2021

It has been nice to have a wee reprieve from the rain over the last couple of days however it hasn't made much difference to the ground conditions. Like many across the region, the farm team are doing everything they can to manage the wet conditions but things don't always go to plan. Today we milked 31 new mums - our biggest calving day so far this season.Key Decisions1. With reduced pasture utilisation in the wet conditions baleage is being offered to the milkers to keep intake up without havi...

Weekly Notes - 5th August 2021

The 2021-22 officially started yesterday with the PSC of the heifers. With already 65 cows in milk, we are off to a good start. APC across the farmlets is good and we have our spring supplement supply on hand. Spring rotation plans and spring feed budgets are now operational. Springer paddocks are not quite at the required pre-graze targets for our 20 m2 daily allocation so we have increased the baleage allocation to fill the deficit DM deficit.Key Decisions this week:1. decrease fodder beet all...

Weekly Notes - 28th July 2021

What a difference a couple of days of sunshine and a bit of wind makes. Crop paddocks at SDH have dried out and the pasture paddocks have firmed up. It is nice to see good growth rates this fortnight, putting all the farmlets in a good position for the start of the season.The farmer reference group met this week to discuss the farm systems modelling that has been completed to help determine the farm systems comparisons for the 2022-23 season (see table attached)Key decisions this week include:�...