Farmer Focus: Strong grass growth drives milk from forage
© Jeff Holmes It’s better to be lucky than good, as the saying goes. We finished second cut on 9 July, the day before we went on our family holiday to celebrate my “big” birthday.
Never have I been so glad to sheet down two silage clamps in quick succession.
It was fantastic to get so much time with our two young children, as they’re growing up too fast. I have to say, though, that the peace and quiet back at home is nice, as they’ve stayed away for another week.
Grass growth continues to be strong, with quality at 85 digestibility value, 13.7MJ metabolisable energy/kg dry matter, and 24% protein. We’ll continue to push intakes as aftermaths come into the rotation, to drive as much milk as we can from the grass.
See also: Zero-grazing switch cuts dairy feed costs by 2p/litre
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We’ve split the cows into two groups and I’m toying with the idea of putting the low-yielders outside while the weather is good. This group is coasting at 16 litres and all are safely back in-calf.
Silage clamps are mostly full of wholecrop, and there’s about 24ha of third cut to go, so we’ve plenty of grass to go at.
We’ve just finished baling 14ha (35 acres) that was getting ahead of the zero grazer, too. I wasn’t brave enough to try to get such leafy grass to hay, even in this sunshine, so it’s been wrapped and should be nice haylage.
I’m writing this article trying to get my neck to straighten out, as I’ve spent all day looking backwards ploughing one 2.5ha (6-acre) field for a reseed.
It’s frustrated me for years as it was unproductive, so I sprayed it off before we went away.
A car bonnet, an old lorry tyre and several lumps of concrete meant the going was very slow.
Our landlord warned me what I might find underneath the surface, but even so. I thought Noah’s ark would turn up.
It doesn’t look very pretty right now, but hopefully the power harrow will knock it into shape.
Combines are rolling into winter barley around us. However, with only wheat here this year, I think we’re still about two weeks away from it being ready for crimping.
If we miss the window, it will be caustic soda-treated. I like caustic wheat in the ration, but it can be time-consuming to treat.