White clover is crucial for New Zealand dairy pastures, offering nutritional value and fixing nitrogen to boost other grasses' growth. Yet, shade hampers its growth, and overusing N fertiliser can outcompete it.

Leaf stage, in ryegrass pasture management, is an indicator for optimal grazing times. Monitoring the leaf stage helps you understand when a paddock is ready for grazing and if your rotation length is suitable for current growth conditions.

Learn the habits of farmers with excellent pasture management, including controlling daily grazing area, treating pasture like a crop, and maintaining optimal pasture cover.

Pre-graze mowing is a technique sometimes used to manage surplus pasture. However, research shows it doesn't increase cow intake or performance, and actually reduces pasture performance.

Successful summer dairy farming demands regular monitoring. This page recommends farm walks, managing grazing residuals, monitoring body condition scores, staying informed on industry information, and future planning.

Intensive winter grazing (IWG) means the grazing of livestock on an annual forage crop at any time in the period that begins 1 May and ends 30 September of the same year. Generally, winter crops (where fed in situ) come under the IWG regulations.

Managing high-quality pasture during feed surplus periods is a crucial skill in pasture management. This page explains that pasture surplus often develops in spring, which if unmanaged, can lead to low-quality pasture affecting milk production.

A heifer's health plan needs to adapt to her age and grazing farm, especially if she moves farms in her first two years. It should cover 5 areas: biosecurity, vaccinations, parasite management, trace elements and minerals, and region-specific issues.

Recording which cows are managed together in herd management groups ensures cows are compared with cows managed under the same conditions. This gives more accurate information for breeding, culling, feeding and long-term herd improvement decisions.

As part of the DairyNZ-led Plantain Potency and Practice programme, trials at Lincoln and Massey universities tested how plantain affects nitrogen leaching, pasture persistence and farm productivity under different soil and climate conditions.

The Coalition Government is making changes to the Resource Management system. DairyNZ made an extensive submission to this process and will continue to engage with ministers and officials. This webpage outlines information on the process ahead.

Proactive visitor biosecurity management helps protect your herd and your business. Visitors can unknowingly bring in diseases, weeds or pests that threaten animal health and farm productivity.

Good effluent management on your dairy farm combines a well-designed system with proper processes to ensure the right amount of effluent gets applied to pasture at the right time.

Spring management focuses on the critical period from calving through to your balance date when feed supply meets demand.