The availability of bag nitrogen has restricted grass growth more than the lack of rain for the last two months in the Greenfield farm in Kilkenny. The farm is probably more restricted than most by the nitrate directive as it has no out farm and hence 250kg of bag nitrogen per hectare on the milking platform is the maximum allowed given the stock on the farm.

Three weeks ago the Kilkenny farm was blanket spread with 15 units of bag nitrogen per acre and this week the farm will get the final 17 units of nitrogen per acre for the year. On many other similarly stocked dairy farms paddocks have been followed after grazing with 30 units of nitrogen and will get 35 units per acre by mid September.

The direct cost to the farm will be reduced grass quality, falling milk solids and less grass grown. The indirect cost is feeding bales to slow the grazing up to allow paddocks bulk up while growth rates are higher than they might be in September.

If we wait until mid September growth rates could be even lower and response to nitrogen will be lower.

The final application of bag nitrogen (half bag per acre) will go out late this week rather than waiting until mid-September (the directive closing date).

The herd will also be scanned soon and cows not in calf and teaser bulls etc will be removed earlier rather than later to reduce the stocking rate further and give paddocks more of a chance to grow. So that’s the downside of regulation.

The upside of the excellent grass growing year is that the farm has just about made enough silage for the coming winter without having to buy in any winter forage. Of course, it’s hard to be definitive on this until the winter comes and goes. However, compare this to the 2013 dry year when almost €30,000 was spent on buying winter forage (almost 60% of the winter requirement).

Some will argue that maybe the farm should have bought in some winter silage rather than making as big a first cut and that would have allowed more bag nitrogen for grazing rather than silage production. The farm didn’t make any second-cut silage and instead just took out surplus grass as it arrived.

The farm has made about 800 surplus bales so far this year. In summary, 113 hectares will have fed 305 milking cows at grass since turnout in February and produced 100% of the winter forage with only 200kg of meal fed per cow.

This performance sets 2014 up to be one of the best low-cost feeding years that we have had since setting the farm up.

Farm hectares

The Greenfield farm has leased another eight hectares of land beside the parlour as the farm owners purchased an eight hectare field and the company subsequently leased it from the land owners. This brings the total leased land available for grazing to 121 hectares.

The new paddock has been reseeded, fenced, and a small roadway is required.

Breeding season

The breeding season has ended, but final scanning has not taken place. The AI season continued up to 8 August. No clean-up bulls were purchased this year, but four Holstein Friesian vasectomised bulls were used to help identify cows in heat.

The Friesians worked out very well. In the past, farm staff have found it difficult to keep bulls going as they easily get lame and hurt from all the walking. This year, they made a special effort to keep the bulls right and fed them 2-3kg of meal per head on their own away from the herd when they came in with the herd for milking.

Current grass figures

This week’s average farm cover was 815kg (320kg/LU), up from 791kg DM/ha last week. The build-up is slow but gradual, so feeding round bales will continue for another week.

The farm staff are feeding about six to seven high- quality round bales per day to the herd (5-6kg DM/cow). This is going on two weeks now. About 150 cows can fit at the feed face at the one time, so in the morning the first 150 cows are let in for silage after milking and in the afternoon the second 150 cows are let in for silage after milking.

The strip wire is up in the paddock to restrict grazing allocation and ensure no more grass than allocated per day is fed out.

Milk payments

The farm has supplied 148,000 litres in July and 119,000 litres so far in August. The statement for July supplies shows about 30% of the July monthly supply is tied up in the GIIL fixed milk price scheme and each litre in that made about 2 c/litre less money than the current manufacturing price.

In GIIL, protein is worth about €7/kg in the fixed milk price scheme, but about €7.4/kg at current price. A kilo of fat is worth about €3/kg in the fixed milk price scheme, but about €3.2/kg at current price (see detail in Table 1). See also total milk sales to date in Figure 2.

For the Kilkenny farm, the bottom line is that the net value of the July milk came in at 39.74 c/litre after all deductions, while the GIIL Group average was 36.7 c/litre, about 3 c/litre behind the Kilkenny farm price – why?

Milk solids is the big difference and the statement shows the Kilkenny farm protein percentage averaged 3.66% for July, while the GIIL Group average was 3.39%. The Kilkenny average fat percentage for July was 4.46%, while the GIIL Group average was 3.88%.

This performance means that a farm which bought cows from seven different herds and only started milking cows in 2010 has a better milk price than half of the farms supplying milk to Glanbia.

Farmers getting below the average price really need to start asking questions about milk solids and where they are going breeding for more fat and protein and improved fertility. This is the real insulation to milk price collapse post 2015. Short-term justification of low milk solids for quota reasons will be a thing of the past next April when the quota gates open.

Current milk yield

The last number of three day milk collections are shown in Figure 1. Essentially for August the herd have done 17 litres at 4.80% fat and 3.80% protein.

  • About 600mm of rain to date this year which, while low, is probably normal enough for the area.
  • Growth for the last four weeks has been back, with average daily growth rates of 40kg, 40kg, 50kg and 28kg recorded for the last four weeks. The farm was measured Monday this week and a growth rate of 28kg was measured for the last six days. The highest paddocks have a cover of 1,500kg/ha and the cows are grazing paddocks right down to 3cm because they are tightened up with the strip wire while they are eating silage. There is plenty of clover around the paddocks.
  • Farm Manager Tom Lyng has been out sick for the last two weeks, so Eoin Finneran has stepped up to the mark.
  • The wheel came off the backing gate a number of times in the last two months. There have been a number of milk pump/parlour issues over the last few weeks. Charleville refrigeration staff have also been out three times in the last few weeks to the bulk tank. I’ll report in detail on all issues at a later stage.
  • The pad was cleaned off last week. There are two drainage pipes to be replaced before new woodchip is spread out. The woodchip peelings for this year have arrived and are stacked up on the pad. They have arrived at a cost of about €800 per artic lorry load.
  • The decision to take no second-cut silage really worked well this year as any paddocks taken out for bales returned to grazing very quickly, optimising quality and quantity. There are plenty of high quality surplus bales that will be fed to slow down the rotation to build grass.
  • The plan is to allow the farm build up to around 450kg of grass per LU for September/October. This means the farm cover will climb towards a farm cover of 1,100kg by mid-September. Previous experience suggests very high covers can be difficult to graze and slower growing over the winter when grazed in October/November.
  • The new leased land (8ha) was grazed by the milking cows in early July for the first time. Like the rest of the paddocks, they are reseeded to monocultures with Astonlord in one paddock and Aberwolfe in the other).