As calving winds down and the days are getting warmer and longer, Matthew Zonderop’s attention has switched to summer feed management on the 140ha farm he sharemilks at Te Poi in Waikato.
Winter is over and any late-calving cows are no longer a concern for him.
Instead, his focus is on growing grass and getting the crop ground ready for sowing, he told a Small Milk and Supply Herds (SMASH) webinar.
Zonderop 50:50 sharemilks 395-400 cross-bred cows on a System 1 farm, growing maize, turnips and chicory as summer feed crops. Zonderop grows it all himself and does not import any feed onto the farm.
Pasture management is also critical with his farming system because of his use of low inputs and the constant movement of livestock.
The calves stay on the farm from July-May 1, at which time the heifers return to the farm from the grazier.
“To be able to run this system, we have to monitor our pastures very closely,” he says.
In late August, the farm has a pasture cover of about 2000kg of dry matter a hectare, with the cows entering paddocks of between 2600-2700kg DM.
He is pleased with the condition of the cows, given the tough, dry autumn conditions. Production at the time of the webinar was level with 12 months ago.
The warmer weather had pushed soil temperatures over late August to 14-15degC.
“It’s starting to move and we’re starting to see that on the grass as well. It’s turning, but I’m a big fan of the spring rotation planner and with our system, we don’t have the luxury of being able to pull the cord with supplements.”
He also has 58 silage bales available and with so few reserves, he follows that planner.
He grows maize, turnips and chicory on 13% of the farm area. The turnips and maize are fed over summer and he also cuts pastures for grass silage.
He runs the cows into two mobs at 2.2ha a mob when feeding them turnips. Each of the turnip paddocks lasts for about 42 days.
During that time, they get turnips in the day and grass silage at night. This slows the round down and allows him to maintain his pasture covers heading into autumn.
His maize is harvested at the end of February-March and fed out straight away at around 4.5kg/cow/day. That will keep the herd going until it is time for dryoff.
“We do keep going usually through to May, but once we have dried off, we have built enough cover and we can go all grass right through to now [late August].”
There is then a final push just before balance date when more maize silage – which is held over from autumn – is fed out to the cows.
Once the maize is harvested, the paddock is direct-drilled into an annual grass that is used as a crop over winter.
“The cows are on there now and two-thirds of their diet is perennial and one third is the annual grass,” he said.
Zonderop’s advice is to listen to the reps when it comes to decisions around sowing, spraying and maintaining those crops.
“We follow that every year without fail and that’s how we get the yields. We spray for White Butterfly, we don’t take that chance not to spray.”
He also sprays his turnip crop and sticks to his fertiliser regimes.
Those dates are usually late October when he knows the temperatures will be high and help to establish the crop faster.
The later sowing date also means he is able to squeeze in another round on his annual grass prior to it being sown into maize.
“I’ve really utilised the bulk pasture,” he said.
He follows a similar policy with his turnips, which are harvested around January 10. He is into his third season using chicory, which is utilised on the calves in late December early January.
Last season, the calves received about 6kg a day on the first round and 4kg on the second, as well as some silage.
On the last round, he supplemented their diet with calf meal and maize as the crop was almost gone.
To keep costs down, he tries to do as much of the work as he can and does all of his own spraying. Asked about the financial costs of cropping he said:
“If I don’t do it, what am I going to fill that void with? Yes, I can pull out these crops, but then I have to fill it with something else. It’s quite hard to fill that void unless I reduce my stocking rate.”
If he does that, it makes it extremely difficult to properly manage his pastures.
“Because we are getting such good yields from our crop, it’s bringing our costs down.”
Similarly, with the calves, if he left them on pasture, he would have to grow another 15 tonnes of drymatter to feed them.
