Hi everyone,
The normal HubWatch Weekly farm update will resume next week when the team is all back on board. In the meantime here are some insights from the farm during the hot weather.
I hope everyone had a great break and took some time to recharge the batteries. The farm team (including myself) have enjoyed time out with the family through the holiday break. There was even some sun where the family and I camped!
What’s happening on farm
Following some very warm days our grass growth is starting to slow down, which has led to a slight drop in production this week to 1.66kgms on average across the herds and current SCC at 144.
As things dry out, this week our average growth has dropped to 48 kgDM/ha (last week was 98) and average pasture cover dropping to 2,332 kgDM/ha (last week was 2500).
Because of this we made the decision to not to drop any paddocks out for baleage this week, as we have in previous weeks. The soil temperature is remaining at about 18 degrees and we have only had 5.6ml of rain in the last seven days.
Looking at the weather ahead there doesn’t look like too much rain on the horizon.
We have been more aggressive this year topping paddocks after grazing to maintain their quality. Pasture management is one of Richard Jones, our Farm Manager’s, passion and it has certainly been a challenge this year with such variability at paddock level.
We haven’t made any changes to round length this week with it sitting at 26 days.
Getting our drone on
Earlier this week we used a drone at the Hub to spread slug bait on our recently planted swede crops. I saw this technology at last year’s Thriving Southland Agritech day and thought with our recent observation of slugs in our crop it would be a great time to try this technology.
We used Nick Munro from Southland Drone Services Limited (Facebook). We even had our neighbour pop over to see how it was working, and he decided it would be a great option to spread urea on his 5ha kale crop in the plant’s early stages.
It’s relatively low cost, there is no ground compaction or damage and you can use in wet ground conditions. It’s also convenient for the smaller, as well as larger, jobs.
And it has really good spray quality thanks to the atomisers that can change the micron sizes depending on the conditions and needs. As you can see from the map, the placement is super accurate. All in all I’d call this a huge success.
Undersowing chore almost done
We have nearly completed our undersowing, which, given that over 35ha needed to be done, is a really great effort. We look forward to these paddocks growing more consistent grass across the full paddocks.
Sprinkling our thirsty cows
Because of the hotter weather, we’ve also been using our sprinkler in the afternoon for the cows – which they love!
Check out the amount of water our cows have drunk. Yesterday was a hot day (23 degrees) and our Halo system shows us they drank approximately 80 litres each (it was the same on Tuesday when it was 22 degrees).
