Your weekly glimpse into research in action at Southern Dairy Hub.
Insights
Production: This week we've seen a drop in production for the Future herd, which is now producing the same as the Standard herd. We attribute this to a combination of factors, including a lag from in-shed feed being removed and the herd needing to tidy up a couple of paddocks for regrassing.
Interestingly, while milk revenue is the same for both herds at $17.38/cow/day, the Standard herd’s supplement feed costs are approximately $1.51 per cow/day, compared to $0 for the Future herd, making the Future milk more profitable.
Plantain Broadcast Success: In November last year, we broadcast prill-coated Ecotain (plantain) seed at 8kg/ha via drone onto several paddocks. Last week, all plantain paddocks were assessed by Agricom as part of the Plantain Partner Farm Network to determine establishment levels.
We're pleased to share that paddock 1 (which previously had no plantain) now has 5% plantain. It is still early days, so we expect this to increase further by this time next year.
Milk Composition (kg MS%): We're currently seeing differences in milk components between the Standard and Future herds: Fat% 5.81 vs 6.09 and Protein% 4.51 vs 4.67.
The Future herd has a higher Fat and Protein BV and is +127 BW above the Standard herd.
Crop Yields: We've started winter crop yield monitoring this week for both swede and kale crops and look forward to sharing the results next week.
Pasture Quality: We took a pasture sample from paddock 78, one of our poorer-performing monitor paddocks, growing at 8.3T compared to the Future farmlet average of 11.2T season to date.
Interestingly, the quality of this paddock was better than expected. This highlights that lower-performing paddocks can still achieve good quality results under our pasture management practices. Results below.
Standard herd
Average BW Southland herd stocked at 3.2 cows/ha at peak, up to 180 kg N/ha and wintered on swedes.
Future herd
Higher genetic merit herd (127 BW difference) stocked at 2.5 cows/ha at peak, up to 180 kg N/ha and wintered on baleage.
If you have any questions about this week's HubWatch, please contact our team.
