There are two key areas of opportunity to improve overall pasture and crop eaten on your farm:

1. Growing more pasture (or crop) and 
2. Utilising more of what you are growing.

Grazing management - which costs nothing - is the easiest solution to optimising both areas.

Grow more

• Nitrogen use

  How to identify the issue

  Obvious (green) urine patches demonstrate N deficit, feed wedge indicates a feed deficit ahead

  Actions

  • Within any environmental limits, use nitrogen to fill deficits in early spring and encourage tillering prior to summer
  • Set N policies for the season, minimise losses
  • Amount of N required to achieve an extra tonne DM/ha. E.g. 100kg N /ha = 1T DM
  • Maximise responses, use in high periods of growth, (N is a growth accelerator)

  See Managing Nitrogen Fertiliser

• Optimal soil fertility

  How to identify the issue

  Low clover content, weeds, urine patches obvious

  Actions

  • Check that the recent soil and plant test is in optimum range
  • Apply leachable nutrients at lower application rates

• Drainage

  How to identify the issue

  Water-logged areas with poor species, compaction, mottled soil layers

  Actions

  • Cost-benefit approach to drainage
  • Minimise pugging, on -off grazing, back fencing, drop fences instead of using normal gate way, graze from back of paddock etc

• Pasture species

  How to identify the issue

  Gaps and/or weed species present

  Actions

  • Are pastures less than 10 years old? If not, how do the cultivars used rate against new genetics (use FVI)
  • Use paddock grazing records, pasture growth records, or Pasture condition score tool to help identify poorer performing paddocks
  • Understand he value of renewing pasture to your farm business
  • Improve clover content, (N, K and graze to avoid shading)

• Manage water deficits

  How to identify the issue

  Dead tillers, open pastures, lack of green material

  Actions

  • Use of deeper rooting species
  • Check irrigation efficiency, water used per kg DM grown
  • Effluent used to best advantage (applied when water needed)
  • Crops and supplements, on-off grazing

• Crops

   

  How to identify the issue

  Feed budget shows feed deficit

  Actions

  • Growing high yielding crops to provide feed during pasture deficit periods- will also help avoid overgrazing of pastures
  • Using crop cycles to improve pasture, e.g. remove /reduce pests, weeds cultivation, drainage
  • Net gain in yield approach shows crop less pasture grown is positive.

   

Eat more

• Matching pasture supply with cow demand

  The efficiency of profitable pasture-based dairy systems is strongly affected by the quantity, quality, and seasonal distribution of pasture grown, and the proportion of this feed that is directly utilised by the grazing animal. 

  Due to the seasonal nature of pasture growth, there are periods of the year where pasture supply may be greater (surplus) or less (deficit) than animal demand. 

  The fundamental aim of many of our feed management decisions on farm is to maintain the balance between feed supply and demand, meeting the energy requirements of the herd while grazing pastures to maximise growth, quality and utilisation.

  

  Tools that can help you to do this include:

  • Annual Feed Budgets
  • Comparative stocking rate tool
  • Identifying and managing surpluses/deficits

• Having a wet weather plan

  Periods of prolonged wet weather or torrential rain have large impacts on the ability to utilise pasture and crops grazed in-situ.

  The wet weather management page outlines strategies that you can implement on your farm to ensure that you maximise utilisation and minimise damage, while looking after your cows and people.

  Use this information to help build a plan that is suitable for your farm and ensure that it is readily available and utilised when periods of wet weather are on the horizon.

• Using supplements appropriately

  How does your supplementary feed usage support pasture quality and growth in the whole farm business? Supplementary feeding is an extremely useful tool to help maintain energy intakes when pasture supply does not meet cow demand.

  How can you identify inputs that are surplus to requirements as opposed to those which are needed to fill feed deficits so that cows maintain energy intake and production for your farm?

  For more info on supplementary feeds and how to utilise them in your farm system see Supplementary feeds and the Response to supplements TechNote.

Grazing management

The three key factors to focus on at every grazing are:

• grazing pasture at the target pre-graze covers
• grazing to the targeted residual
• having the correct stocking rate

To achieve this requires regular assessment of pasture. See Leaf stage for more information.

The opportunity to grow and harvest more pasture is present on every farm. The performance of paddocks can vary widely – often the top paddock can grow double that of the lowest paddock on the farm. Key aspects to focus on are:

• Nitrogen use
• Soil fertility
• Drainage
• Pasture species
• Managing moisture deficits