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Dairy notes January 2008

Efficient milk Production

Over the past few years there has been a dramatic fall in production of milk from forage (MFF) on many farms.  At the beginning of this decade the average farm was producing 3300-3400 litres MFF. Current figures show a fall to less than 1850 litres – over a 305 day lactation that’s just six litres per day from forage!  A medium quality silage should achieve this low level of production – what about production from grazed grass and high quality grass/maize silage.
Despite the poor summer, the top herds are achieving over 3600 litres from forage at yields of 7400 litres on 1.7 tonnes of meal. The average producer is feeding an extra 800 KGs of meal to achieve similar performance.  At a meal cost of £200 per tonne that’s an extra input cost of £16,000 per year for a 100 cow herd.  Its time for many producers to focus on production efficiency :
  • Yes, 2007 was a difficult grazing season but could you have made better use of grazing if you had more lanes, extra entrances to fields, grazed for short periods?
  • do the high yielders (40 litres +) need to be housed full time – could they not be grazed by day and housed at night?
  • are you limiting cows intake of forage with – not enough feed space, no feed available for several hours per day, limiting the amount fed in the TMR?
  • are stale cows being fed too much meal – do you need to batch cows or reduce the meal level in the TMR?

Nitrates Directive Derogation

Have you worked out yet if you can farm within the 170 KG nitrogen from livestock manure limit of the Nitrates Directive for the 2008 calendar year or do you need to apply for a derogation to apply up to 250 KG of livestock manure nitrogen.  The derogation has to be applied for by 1 March.
If you believe you may be just over the 170 KG limit in the coming year, now is the time to look at other options:
  • exporting slurry to a neighbour with beef cattle who is well below the 170 KG limit .  As 1 cubic metre (220 gallons) of dairy cow slurry contains 3 KG N, a 100 ha farm would have to export over 33 cubic metres (over 7,000 gallons) for every 1 KG they are above the 170 limit.
  • taking control of additional hectares of land.
  • reducing stock numbers by stopping rearing bull calves or  fattening cull cows.
If you have to apply for a derogation, there will be extra record keeping to do and some extra restrictions on land management compared with those producers operating under the 170 KG limit.  The main differences are :
  • an annual fertilisation plan has  to detail  planned average stock numbers for the year, storage available for animal manures, N and P to be produced by the livestock, planned area of grassland and crops, slurry and fertiliser levels to be applied to similar blocks of land.
  • at least 80 percent of the area you control must be in grassland.
  • you must not exceed a phosphorous (P) balance of 10 KGs/ha/year.
  • on dairy farms you must not exceed 272 KG N /ha/year from chemical fertiliser.
  • all land has  to be soil sampled every four years.
A Guidance Booklet giving full details of the derogation regulations will be available in early 2008.  DARD will also be holding a series of information evenings for those producers considering applying for a derogation.