GRASS MANAGEMENT
Making good use of grass is not exclusively the domain of grass based systems. If your cows go out to grass there is money to be made even in higher yielding herds as DairyCo’s Piers Badnell explains
he Milkbench+ reports demonstrate that for dairy farmers the main determinant of profit is total cost of production. And Milkbench+ figures have consistently shown that forage utilisation is a huge profit driver across the board. Making and using good
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quality forage makes sense whatever farming system you practise. The Kingshay Milk Map shows the range of concentrate use at
differing yields. If by producing better quality forage, be that conserved or grazed, this concentrate use can be reduced then the same yield targets can still be used to drive profits. For example the range on 8000 litres is 1-3.5t of purchased feed, a 2.5t difference – in the region of £550 a cow.
FIGURE 1
The Milkbench+ reports show that average yield/cow is not the main driver of profit. Every extra litre you produce needs to be profitable. When grown and grazed well grass is the cheapest feed for cows, whatever the farming system. It needs to be managed well, just like other feed stuffs, to provide the
nutrition cows need.
A cow yielding less than 7500 litres should be a predominantly grazing animal when enough grass is available. When she’s giving more than 7500 / 8000 litres then litres from grass can still be maximised when she is in-calf. Any in-calf cow, giving less than 30 litres a day can be a grazing cow. That’s not to say that other cows in the herd can’t make excellent use of grass too with the help of well managed supplementation and flexibility at grazing. But the real potential comes from the in-calf and less than 30 litre cow. For cows to work at grazing they have to have high quality feed in front of them. Treat grass like any other part of the cows’ diet. That means knowing the nutritional value of it in exactly the same
34 THE JOURNAL JUNE 2015
was as any other feed brought on to the farm you buy onto the farm. So the key to this is rotational grazing, graze down hard and allocate cows an area to clear up at each grazing so they clear it all, cow choice is detrimental to good grazing. It is essential to know how much a cow is allocated to eat and when grass is managed well the metabolisable energy will be 12.
Based on this it can be worked out whether or not cows need supplementing. The key to this is a plate meter so cows enter paddocks at 2800 kg DM/ha (2.5-3 leaves) and graze down to 1500 Kg DM/ ha (about 4-5cm). Residuals from time to time won’t be achieved and then these will be renewed by dry stock, taking a cut of silage in surplus or pre-mowing and grazing.
Make sure cows have the right grass cover when they enter a paddock and they will have an appetising piece of grass in front of them. It is also important to ensure there is sufficient grazing pressure which leaves the right residuals. Not only will this ensure grass is being well used, but it will set up grazing ground well for the quality of subsequent grazing. The ryegrass tiller typically supports three live leaves. Monitoring the emergence of these leaves indicates the best entry level and post grazing points and it has proved an effective way of optimising the production and quality of grazed herbage throughout the season.
Allowing cows to graze ryegrass that has less than two fresh leaves severely reduces the vigour of the plant and subsequent re-growth. Until that plant has developed two leaves the sugar supply has not had a chance to regenerate. Grazing below this point slows recovery, regeneration and ultimately the yield of the plant. Crucially the first leaf of the plant produces the least DM yield, the second yields higher, but it is the third leaf that
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