Costings split grass & silage

11 April 1997

Costings split grass & silage

MILK produced from low cost grazed forages will be split from that produced from more expensive conserved forages on Genus Milkminder dairy costings from September.

At its National Forage Con-ference, Genus announced that it has now started asking producers to start giving forage use details.

A comparison of Somerset/ Wilts/Dorset farms producing over 4000 litres from forage showed that between 13 and 76% of the yield from forage came from grazed grass, according to Genus Managements Derek Gardner.

There was great variation in the costs of producing forages and their nutritional values, he said. But grazed grass or forages were the cheapest feeds, with low overhead costs.