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Weekly Notes - 17th February 2022

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Weekly Notes - 10th February 2022

Key Decisions:Feed:• Despite the lack of rain over the last week pasture growth has continued to meet or exceed demand at the current pasture allocations for each herd (range 14-15 kg DM/cow) resulting in small increases in average pasture cover• Visually pasture quality appears to have improved and with 3 herds grazing new grass paddocks this week we have seen a lift in milk production.• We are observing significant differences in the colour and evenness of pastures between the Std and LI...

Weekly Notes - 3rd February 2022

With 25 mm of rain in the last 2 weeks, less wind and some N on our standard paddock, we have growth again this week! While still below demand for a full pasture diet in both the low and standard farmlets, growth is allowing us to offer approximately 15 kg DM as pasture.Key Decisions:Feed:• Pasture samples taken last week came back with crude protein (CP) levels between 12% and 16%, except for the new grass paddocks which were >25%. These low crude protein contents will be one reason behind...

Weekly Notes - 27th January 2022

The first scan of the herds was completed last week for all herds and at a farm level 6 weeks in-calf rate has lifted again on last year's results, sitting at 73.8%. All the hard work and dedication from the farm team has paid off.Key decisions this week:Feed:• Managing pasture quality and allocation continues to be a priority as we struggle to hold milk production across all farmlets.• Both kale farmlets and the LIFB farmlet have paddocks that are long days post graze and losing quality. Th...

Weekly Notes - 20th January 2022

Our critical focus is on keeping cows in the pasture of the correct length and best quality this week with any paddocks above pre-grazed target being earmarked for baleage.Key Decisions this week:Feed• The 12-month-old grasses are going through a period of quite uneven growth potentially due to compaction issues. These paddocks are a high priority for aeration once conditions allow. In the Std farmlets these paddocks will continue to get N after grazing, however for those in the LI farmlets th...

Weekly Notes - 13th January 2022

Key Decisions this week:• Feed:Based on residuals from the last couple of paddocks in each farmlet the inshed feeding has been removed from the Std FB and reduced to 1 kg DM/ha for all other herds. Kale herds are back on a 70:30 PKE: barley blend and the LI FB on PKE only.o 1 paddock in each of the standard farmlet was identified as surplus on Thursday and mown for baleage and will be baled before the weekend.o Nitrogen applications will resume this week to the std farmlets at an application r...

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...