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Making Full Use Of All Pasture Land For Best Results

Pasture is the cheapest and most efficient food for dairy cattle in New Zealand, provided it is properly utilised. It has on stock few injurious effects, such as bloat, staggers and eczema, and on produce the main bad effect is through clover taint. The main disadvantage of pasture lies in its wide variations in quality and yield from one season of the year to another, these differences being due to a variety of factors. Since the variations do exist, there must be evolved a system of farming which will enable maximum use of the herbage produced, and ♦which will involve the concepts that good feed should' never be wasted and that the animals should never be seriously underfed. Further, the needs of dairy cows very with their degree of maturity, their level of productivity and the stage of lactation. Hence, the varying needs of the animal and the irregular production of pasture must . be made to coincide as closely as ' posible if full advantage of the cheap and nutritious herbage is to ; be taken. Bound up with a solution of this 1 problem are various principles and 1 proven practices. These principles include:— (1) Extension of the growing sea- ; son of pasture by use of improved, strains of pasture species, topdressing, drainage, shelter and improved management. < (2) Storing of surplus pasture as silage, hay, or autumn-stored grass. 1 (3) Utilisation oj the best of this ; stored feed for those cows needing - most feed for their higher milk pro- 1 duction. (4) Provision of other feed where pasture surplus is insufficient in both quality and quantity, this provision consisting of wintering off the home farm or growing root crops and lucerne. (5) Endeavouring to reduce human labour as much as possible by making the cow forage for herself. A few general comments on seasonal dairying as carried out in New Zealand may be appropriate at this stage. A milking cow’s requirements, provided she is calved at the correct time, follow reasonably closely in its fluctuations the curve of pasture production. The date of calving is arranged according to geographic considerations so that the bulk of the herd is in milk by the time active pasture growth commences. Calving is sometimes too early because of the attempt to avoid sterile services; in consequence the total seasonal production is reduced because of the low plane of nutrition available when the cow’s urge to secrete milk is strongest, at the beginning of the lactation.

The normal practice is for cows to be wintered on available grass, plus hay, silage and/or roots. Some of the better rye-white paddocks are spelled during the winter months for the early calvers, and as a result of this spelling they produce ■feed earlier than do those which have carried stock through the winter. Topdressing with ammoniated super six to eight weeks before noi> mal spring growth commenced was at one time practised extensively, but in spite of its producing the earlier bite it has not continued a popular practice. This system is now being replaced by ..closing up some of the pasture in the autumn and carrying it through to the . early spring. While pasture is plentiful during September, October and November, milk production is maintained, but with the dry spells liable from December onwards production may fall away more than is normal. During the period pasture declines in both quantity and quality, and in some districts, unless additional' feed is supplied, milk production may recede rapidly. At this stage strippers and carry-overs are usually dried off. Following the summer shortage, pasture usually makes' a recovery in the autumn, and provided the period of inadequate nutrition has not been prolonged, normal milk production levels may be resumed. With the onset of .the semi-dormant winter stage the cows are dried.off and spelled from milking for from s J x to eight weeks, when the cycle commences again..

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BPB19480906.2.7.2

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 91, 6 September 1948, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
657

Making Full Use Of All Pasture Land For Best Results Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 91, 6 September 1948, Page 3

Making Full Use Of All Pasture Land For Best Results Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 91, 6 September 1948, Page 3

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