Tuesday, 17 April 2012 14:33

Big bucks in pasture renewal

Written by 

PASTURE HAS become central to every farm management system for Wayne and Raewyn Reynolds at their 460-cow, 154ha farm at Gordonton, North Waikato.

Farming on difficult peat soil with a focus on pasture renewal and management, they are the Pasture Improvement Focus Farm for Waikato.

Wayne told the recent BERL report launch that before he went farming he worked in dairy genetics, but quickly concluded animals were best looked after by making pasture the centre of the business. He says pasture is "close to the ideal feed" – cheap to grow and feed, safe and of good quality.

Successive droughts and black beetle damage had been recent challenges leading to huge variation in performance, some paddocks doing 11.5 t DM/ha/year while others managed 18.6 t DM/ha/year.

Reynolds's deploys various policies (see panel) to protect pasture productivity and renews 10% of the farm every year. Paddocks for renewal are selected by using DairyNZ's pasture condition scoring tool and on DM production.

Rather than just resowing a permanent pasture, a programme approach of an annual ryegrass, chicory, and then back to perennial ryegrass, is used. Coated seed and endophyte minimise pest damage and optimise establishment.

Reynolds says he gets an average 2.4t DM/ha gain from renovation in the first year, and spreading the cost of renovation over three seasons estimates the extra feed grown costs no more than 14c/kg DM, comparing favourably with supplement such as PKE at 29 c/kg DM.

Featured

$52,500 fine for effluent mismanagement

A Taupiri farming company has been convicted and fined $52,500 in the Hamilton District Court for the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent into the environment.

Ospri brings Bovine TB testing in-house

The move to bring bovine TB testing in-house at Ospri officially started this month, as a team of 37 skilled and experienced technicians begin work with the disease eradication agency.

National

Machinery & Products

» Latest Print Issues Online

The Hound

Arable advocacy?

OPINION: Spare a thought for the arable farmer, squeezed on one side by soft global prices and on the other…

Gaslight much?

OPINION: Labour leader Chris 'Chippy' Hipkins is carrying on the world-class gaslighting of the nation that he and his cohorts…

» Connect with Rural News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter