Displaying items by tag: John Roche

The argument over whether New Zealand has too many cows is a regional issue, not a national issue, according to Ministry of Primary Industries’ chief science advisor, John Roche.

All resilient farm systems need to be low cost, says DairyNZ principal scientist John Roche.

The break-even cost of supplementary feed is 3.5% of the milk price, says DairyNZ principal scientist John Roche.

A new trial at the Northland Agricultural Research Farm near Dargaville is looking at alternatives to importing feed.

Using bought-in supplement to ‘produce milk for milk’s sake’ could be robbing the New Zealand dairy industry of its resilience says DairyNZ primary scientist John Roche.

The need for farmers to have a sound strategy to avoid flip-flopping from year to year is now more important than ever. 

A lot of research into body condition scoring has yielded overwhelming evidence to support DairyNZ targets at calving.

Dairy farmers searching for efficiencies in their operation know that homegrown, fully utilised pasture has always been the most cost-effective feed. Even before the current downturn, many farmers were not only looking at output ratios such as milk solids per cow, but also at feed efficiency ratios such as the cost of producing a megajoule of metabolisable energy per kg of dry matter. 

Secrets to milking even smarter will be revealed at 10 new-format DairyNZ Milksmart events being held nationwide over the next few months.