Meeting the feed gap

However, with silage and conserved fodder stores exhausted, bridging the extended feed gap brought on by eight months of extreme dry and maintaining production will pose a big challenge across the next three months and producers are having to look outside the square in terms of livestock management.

Many dairies across all coastal regions are carrying additional numbers on account of rock-bottom prices for culls and have had to dry-off cows earlier if they are not producing to provide more feed for those that are.

On the North Coast – where freight has made bought-in fodder under $400 a tonne dry matter a pipe dream – farmers have looked to never-before-tried feedstuffs to make hay and silage go further.

Unless it rains consistently through winter, they will likely have to continue down this path.

Oats have gone in early because of the dry, despite the lack of available seed for rust-resistant varieties recommended for earlier plants.

That gamble has been hit and miss, depending on where crops are, until last week’s deluge.

Double the amount of oats typical for the Northern Rivers have already been planted, agronomists estimate.

Across the South and North Coast they are expecting big early ryegrass plantings on the back of the rain and say there are some basic steps producers can take to optimise the amount of pasture available at the first grazing.

Norco field officer Bill Fulkerson, Lismore, said sowing cheap tetraploid seed was a good option because the larger seed would be better able to compete with the summer grass competition.

He said the amount of pasture at the first grazing could be nearly doubled by adding one kilogram of Hunter leafy turnip a hectare at very low cost.

Brassicas are another good option for early sowing, given lower seed costs, he said.

With soil temperatures still warm – about 19 degrees Celsius – it was possible to get another month from summer grasses like kikuyu, seteria and Rhodes and applying urea was a good move, he said.

Some Northern Rivers producers were also trialling milled almond husk, sourced from the Riverina.

At 10.5 megajoules of metabolisable energy per kilogram of dry matter, and with the green shoot from the recent rain and perhaps supplements to offset its low protein, the unusual feed could prove fairly successful, Mr Fulkerson said.

South of Sydney, producers had by and large been able to source the feed they’ve needed but it has come at a big cost, according to South Coast and Highlands Dairy Industry Group chair Tracey Russell.

At times it has been freighted from as far as South Australia.

Cow prices dropped to as low as five cents a kilogram and many southern dairy farmers had not sold culls since last November, Mrs Russell said.

“One of driest summers we’ve seen has combined with very low cattle prices and a widespread lack of available fodder for sale to create a drastic situation,” she said.

“That has been eased significantly by the latest rain but it is still an awkward year. Many have not been able to make any conserved feed this season while others were forced to make the sacrifice and cut corn crops early just to get through.

“Some started dry-sowing ryegrass early in March and that gamble will likely pay off thanks to this rain.”

However, follow-up rain across all coastal regions will be needed within a few weeks or farmers say they will have to immediately return to drying off cows that are within three to four months of calving.