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Finding The Invisible Rye Grass

Milk prices have crashed since February leaving many farming enterprises in a precarious financial predicament.

By Department of Primary Industries - 21st April 2009 - Back to News

Although some of the variable costs such as fuel, feed, fertilisers and sprays have also dropped over the last few months, their drops were not of the same proportion. That’s the bad news!

The good news is that many farmers have an unseen supply of ryegrass in their paddocks. We know that from Project 3030 and the Dairy Extension Centre Feeding Pastures for Profit program where many farmers have discovered this invisible pasture. By sticking to relatively simple grazing management guidelines, as used by these two activities, we can unlock the potential of our existing pastures.

Remember back to when cows used to produce 185 kilograms of butterfat per cow and now produce 250 to 300 kg/BF/cow? This extra production was also invisible, but they were virtually the same animal, breeding wise. It was just by simply feeding the cows more and balancing the ration a bit, that released their potential to produce the extra butterfat (now we talk in milk solids) for which they had been bred to do.

Your pastures are the same, assuming that they are growing in reasonably fertile soils with no other limitations to growth. They have hidden potential. Of course rainfall does help (a lot).

Using grazing guidelines promoted by Feeding Pastures for Profit, and despite the drought year, (2006/07) at DemoDairy in Terang, the Project 3030 farmlets still produced a profit. Return on assets (ROA) of about 6 per cent and the cows utilised 6 to 7 tonne dry matter per hectare (t DM/ha). These figures reflect the poor growing season on a rainfall of 465 mm compared to a long term average of about 800 mm and utilisation rates of 7.3 to 8.5 t DM/ha and ROAs of 10 to 20 per cent.

So where is this invisible pasture?

In most case, pasture is not given the full potential to grow (autumn winter, summer) and may be wasted in spring, although early spring growth may be held back initially by throttling its potential in late winter and early spring.

Ryegrass has the potential to grow three green leaves and the first leaf then starts to die off as the fourth or new leaf appears, decreasing pasture quality. At the start of each season many farmers start to graze their cows on autumn ryegrass pastures too early or send the cows around the farm in a fast rotation, say 20 to 25 days, chasing the green pick.

Often the ryegrass only gets the chance to grow two green leaves before it is grazed again. Farmers are missing out on their first opportunity to grab some of this invisible feed. This is the third leaf which is about 25 per cent larger than the second leaf and can represent 40 to 50 per cent of total pasture production for that round. Then we have the other three seasons to make further gains.

There is real knack to starting to graze autumn pastures after the break and it either requires using a sacrifice area or a very slow rotation initially, speeding up as the plants approach 2.5 to 3 leaves. Apart from the cost, waiting for the entire farm to reach three green leaves is not practical, as the fourth leaf will appear and result in the loss of a leaf over the entire farm.

The Department of Primary Industries Dairy Extension Centre staff run a very useful and practical program, Feeding Pastures For Profit. It helps farmers to find and utilise this invisible pasture. Past participants have grown and utilised 20 to 40 per cent more pasture in the first year and found they have never had so much grass in spring for silage or hay.

This extra grass translates into profit with minimal extra cost apart from attending the program. Pasture needs to be managed to get the most from it and then supplementary feeding at the most profitable level to compliment the pasture base. Feeding Pastures for Profit tackles both these issues.

Feeding Pastures for Profit is a practical program designed to take out the guess work, gut feel and figure work of pasture allocation and rotation setting and supplementary feeding. It will allow you to grow more and higher quality grass, assist to make the decision of how much supplement to feed and when and how much silage and hay to cut. Importantly, it can unlock the invisible pasture potential and increase your bottom line substantially.

Feeding Pastures for Profit is for dairy farm owners, managers and farm staff who are in charge of the day to day decisions relating to the grazing of the dairy herd. Run between milkings, the next round of programs will be at Neerim South on April 30 and May 7, and at Foster on May 1 and 8.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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