I believe the corporates talk about continuous improvement, but I’m a bit old school and view every day as a school day. I don’t believe in mistakes and prefer to call them “learning experiences”.

This last month of farming has brought many such experiences, although they do seem to be leading to some positive outcomes. The current grazing wedge sums this up perfectly. On Sunday we returned to the meadow paddock (it’s wet after a wet spell, dry after a dry spell) after 14 days post-grazing. With growth rates so variable I’m currently doing a grass walk every four to five days. The previous two walks have seen growth consistently at 100kg dry matter per hectare (DM/ha).

Multiply this by 14 days and the magic pre-grazing cover of 1,400kg is reached. This paddock comes with the caveat of being reseeded last year, skipped and baled in the first rotation as it was too wet, before being slurried, fertilised and grazed perfectly 14 days ago. However, the cows did need to be moved from the paddock 12 hours earlier than expected leading to some questions. I’ve started using a plate meter to measure through Grass Check, so was the measurement accurate? I’m confident it was.

Are cow intakes higher than expected, especially in perfect covers? I don’t have the answer to this but this leads me nicely to the project for the rest of the season - can I drive forage intake further?

I’ve always used 18kg DM/head/day. I hear of farmers down south pushing intakes well over 22kg and producing massive volumes of milk solids.

Wedge

I’m managing the wedge by a mix of taking paddocks out for bales, pit silage or holding some back to mow in a week or two if they aren’t needed for grazing – this couldn’t be achieved without fantastic contractors.

Breeding

Breeding started on 11 May with a bull let in with the heifers, although this also meant the kids’ beef heifers had to go to the mart.

One of my children is tight like her dad and is happy to put the money into the college fund, but the other spends money like her mum and has grand plans of diversification. As usual, some form of compromise will be reached.

A few curve balls meant I didn’t have the head space for a synchronisation and AI programme on the heifers. Hopefully I don’t regret this, but I’m already struggling to get through the sexed straws and definitely won’t have all my dairy replacements after two weeks of calving in 2027.

The cows started AI on 14 May and submission has been good, with 60% after 10 days. I’ll aim to complete five to six weeks of AI followed by three to four weeks with the bull, finishing breeding on 16 July.

My next learning experience is hopefully hay making, so a week of weather like this one would be great in the middle of June.