In February, Maria caught up with Evan for the first time and he shared an overview of the operation and how the business manages seasonal conditions.
Evan spoke about the newly installed pivot and the benefits to the farm. He hoped for rain by the 20 March or ANZAC Day at the latest, but the farm was prepared if a delayed break or a dry autumn occurred.
A very long autumn and winter
Back in February things were looking good. We had a wet summer, and it had dried off. We hoped it would rain by the 20 March and we did get some by then, but it didn’t rain again. We didn’t get rain by ANZAC Day, and we probably weren’t that worried at that stage as we had a lot of stored feed.
The perennial grasses tried to grow 3 times but didn’t get along far enough to graze and sat dormant for the next rain.
May came and passed and we still didn’t have significant rain and by this stage we were getting heavy frost after heavy frost, probably the best frosts we have had in over 10 years.
On the 31 May we had the first substantial rain since the last week of January. The paddocks were still brown at this stage.
We were worried the annual paddocks we had sown in March, which had germinated on some rainfall, hadn’t survived but they responded.
In August, we had a dry spell with no rain until the 17th. The weather bought 15 frosts in a row which is unusual as there would normally be drizzle or overcast weather between.
The frost and wind made conditions dry and when the milk truck came down the road you would think it was November with the dust. I was starting to think that this spring may not be great, but we have had rain since.
Those who remember the autumn of 1967 say it is the worst autumn and winter we have had since then.
Pivot provided some green feed
The 88 acres (35 hectares) under the pivot provided feed effectively in March and April when we didn’t have a lot of cow numbers in the milking herd. In May the brand-new motor stopped pumping, and we thought it would be okay to wait for repairs, as the supplier was unavailable to fix it immediately.
One more watering in May would have been great, however being May, what we grazed off wouldn’t have been much more as we were getting massive frosts, and the pivot area probably wasn’t moisture stressed.
Silage reserves kept things going
We milked 580 cows again this season. Early on we sold 30 of the first autumn calvers as it was dry and my uncle over the hill was looking to increase numbers. I was a bit uncomfortable about selling 2- and 3-year-olds autumn cows, but I was happy I did in the end. I haven’t culled to many more like I thought we might of.
In mid-May we opened a silage pit with approximately 1400 tonnes of dry matter in it which we had hoped not to have to feed.
This pit fed all stock, including the dairy cows, 120 heifers, about 400 steers, and 100 other miscellaneous beef cows, for 3 months from mid-May right up to mid-August when all stock were back grazing.
If we were feeding square bales of hay, we would have been feeding the equivalent of over 30 bales a day or 15 tonne dry matter.
Milk production dropped
The silage wasn’t the best quality being from the wet spring of 2022 and resulted in cows dropping 4-to-5 litres per cow per day as we moved from the good quality silage they were eating. To increase the energy density of the diet for the dairy herd we fed more grain in the bale and bought in some corn silage in high density silage bales.
Overall, the litres of milk produced during winter were down about 20% on last year, which was frustrating, we were down a few cows with the 30 sold early and a few others we sold. Looking at milk solids though as we are feeding out, we got a higher protein and butter fat percentage.
Back on pasture
In the middle of July grass was growing well but we held off putting the milking herd on it until the 31 July. We didn’t want to go too early and get around it and then shoot ourselves in the big toe.
On the 20 August we were able to offer grass for both feeds. In the last 10 days grass growth has really increased.
With the dry conditions some of the perennial paddocks have had black beetle damage despite being a variety with an endophyte that is black beetle resistant.
During the autumn when there wasn’t much growth you couldn’t really tell the damage until it started to grow. It is only a small percentage of the farm affected but there are larvae there.
Feed reserves
We still have one pit left of 160 to 200 tonnes of really good silage. It was a pit burnt during the fires which we removed the top off and resealed and covered with dirt.
Worse comes to worse we could have fed the cows until September and if pasture wasn’t growing by then it would have been terrible anyway. We would have had to really look at things. I would say the steers would have been put into groups and fed more grain then picked out to sell. Now we have grass hopefully we will cut a heap of silage.
We didn’t sell the steers
We could have sold some steers but decided not to as most of the cost is in feeding them early on. Some of the steers we did sell were making good money for Friesian steers, so we bit the bullet and grew them out to sell in the spring.
We have just taken 108 steers at 550 kilograms to the block at Tintaldra to grow out on grass. We will probably make a decision and sell them as a group or two in mid-October. We will get them to around 700kg and they should make good money and at least break even.
Once these steers are sold, we will take the 18-month-olds over there for the summer. This will leave the dairy cows, heifers and a handful of little steers on the home farm.
We probably won’t keep as many steers going forward, we only kept 100 steer calves this year whereas the last couple of years we pretty much kept everything. Underlying we anticipate there will probably be changes to how the bobby calf market is operated and maybe deep down we were seeing if we could maintain them if we had to keep them all.
Also, on our farm we can’t harvest all our paddocks and there are long walks for the dairy cows to some paddocks, so the steers do make you money most years when you are growing grass.
Gearing up for silage harvest
They keep talking it is going to be a wet spring so hopefully it is. Our soil moisture is lower than usual for this time of year with 99% of our paddocks trafficable all winter and no springs are running. If we have 25mm weekly from now until the end of Christmas it would be gold.
We need to make the decision to if we go for quality or quantity when it comes to making our silage. Ideally, we want to cut grass for quality, but we may need to cut a bit of grass a bit longer to get some quantity into a pit.
I am hoping we can harvest three to four pits, cutting at least 1000 tonnes of dry matter maybe up to 1500 tonnes of dry matter. I am assuming the first 500 tonne we cut will be high quality then see what happens from there.
Last year our spring was slow, it was a terrible spring looking back on it now. It sort of rained then didn’t rain and then it got hot, and the grass sat there.
The poor conditions were probably masked by the rain in December which meant we were able to graze. I think in the last week here we have grown grass at the highest growth rates since the spring of 2021. The spring of 2022 was terribly wet, and it was hard to do anything and last year there was limited moisture.
Today we need to sit here and decide at what point do we cut. We cut all our own silage, and we have a big cart which allows us to cut 30 to 40 ha a day and get it in the pit.
When we get 4 days of reasonable weather you can get some grass off. Our larger cart allows us to cut grass anywhere on the farm that it is required to cut instead of focusing on one area and leaving other areas that may be ready for cutting for the following week.
We don’t lock paddocks up we just skip them in the rotation. We work on the Feeding Pasture for Profit theory the cows should always eat the best grass and eventually you should have a surplus, in an ideal world.
At the moment, if things keep going like it is now, we will have a couple of hundred hectares of grass to cut in a few weeks’ time. We haven’t cut silage in September in a number of years.
We don’t lock up paddocks. I always like to keep grazing and take out paddocks that are surplus. You can get caught out and have paddocks with good grass in the last week of September, first week of October ready to cut.
Then if we get a week of rain, it can get its fifth and six leaf growing and quality declines. I don’t like getting caught out like that early in the season, maybe I would be okay with that in November but not in October.
Maximising silage harvest
During springtime we normally try to make as much money as we can off grass. I normally cut the grain mix in the dairy down to 4 kilograms per cow and feed some straw to balance the diet and keep milk solids up.
This year we are looking to maximise our silage harvest. We will feed 6 or 7 kilograms of grain mix per cow and wear the cost to generate more surplus grass for fodder production as a priority.
I have also purchased some good quality oaten hay with enough to feed the cows 2 bales, or 2.5kg per cow per day, right through the spring until December.
We would normally feed straw or lower quality hay. With better quality cereal hay, it might grow me a couple more kilograms of grass. That way if it doesn’t rain, we should have made a bit more silage and if it keeps raining it is a win, win.
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