Latest / Talking Dairy / Turning pasture to profit: are you hitting your residuals? | Ep. 137

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Turning pasture to profit: are you hitting your residuals? | Ep. 137 · Talking Dairy

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Talking Dairy.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm Keely Buckingham, Dairy NZ Area Manager for Eastern Southland, and I have the pleasure of hosting today's episode.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to head back to a recent Progress ing Dairy event that we hosted here in Southland called Pasture to Profit.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: We hosted at Glentui in Northern Southland and we're hosted on Farm by Hayden and Kirsty Gaines, a variable order share milking.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So Hayden and Kirsty milk around 750 cows on 256 hectares, and over the last 12 years they've been on that farm, the focus on understanding how their pasture operates is how they can consistently grow over 15 tonnes of dry matter per hectare and produce over 1700 kilos of milk swords per hectare.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So whether you made it along to the event last week or not, today we're going to cover the highlights and hot topics from the day.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Joining Hayden today on our podcast is senior farm system specialist Ron Pellow, and together the three of us are going to delve into what the hot topics were on the day, what questions farmers had, and also get a really good understanding of how Hayden operates their farm business to get them performing where they are.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to jump into it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So tēnā kōrua, Hayden and Ron.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Where are you joining us from today?
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And can you please each introduce yourself?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Hayden, we'll start with you.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Joining you from uh the tropics of northern Southland.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And yeah, me and my wife Kirsty run a property for Simon Jeanine Hopcroft up here, variable order sharemilking.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So been up here for 12 seasons, first three seasons we're managing, and then got the opportunity to go variable water in season four.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah, nine years down the track from that first year, we're still here.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Riversdale, you can't get enough of it.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: How good?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Very good.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Great place.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And Ron, do you just want to introduce yourself for us?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Ron Pellow from DairyNZ working out of our Lincoln office and uh was pleased to be down in Southland uh last week with the team on some of the innovative farms looking at how they turned pasture into profit.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: We're stoked to be able to bring you down South Ron.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: We know you would love to live down here secretly.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Great place.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It is a great place and full of great people.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Hayden, can you give us an overview of Glen tui and the farm system you're running?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: 750 cows, 245, 250 effective, fully irrigated.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Well, 80%, sorry, through two centre pivots and um three wipers.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Uh two centre pivots having uh variable rate irrigation and no crops on farm, just wholly focused on pasture and growing as much pasture as we can under a profitable system.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And in terms of staffing on farm, what does that look like?
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Got two full-timers and myself, and then another half labour equivalent through the season, um, relief milking and um helps through calving period.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Uh in terms of stocking rate, breed of cows, do you just want to give us a rundown on what that looks like?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so stocking rates three cows to the hectare and breed of cows was started off being a Friesian base with sort of downsized slightly towards a cross, but yeah, FT and F 12 cross, sort of aiming for sort of just a little bit uh lighter live weight, cows, still plenty of appetite.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And in terms of farm system you're running there, I think you've categorically fallen to that system for with cows heading off for winter.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: But do you just want to talk us through a quick overview in terms of what feeding looks like on your system?
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: So predominantly you um pasture-based and um feed supplements through the shoulders of the system to uh season, sorry, to um help hold rotation round length um in that first part of the season, and then supplement gets introduced at the last three months to try cushion and um utilize as much pasture as we can.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And we are gonna get into more of your system soon.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: But if we jump back to our events last week, Ron, I might throw to you first, but I guess what from you really stood out and got farmers talking in the system from what we went through on the day.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: One of the things that Hayden described really well and is clearly a core part of how the farm is performing really well is strict adherence to the spring rotation planner and your very clear targets through the season that enable you to implement that really, really well.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: So I was really keen and pleased to hear the conversation around that and your focus on that.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: And there was a comment that you made that I'd love you to repeat around how you allocate area per day through that first part of the spring.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Use the word brutal in terms of area allocation and use of GPS.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: So I'd love for you to just expand on that a little bit for us, Hayden, please.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I guess brutal is one way to put it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: It may not have been the right words, but probably summed it up really.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Ultimately, really strict on square metres or per cal from day one.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So really trying to draw out that first round as long as we can to try match um pasture growth with demand, sort of to ideally limit the amount of supplement we have to put in.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we run this season with 65 square metres right through that period.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: And yeah, if it doesn't look right, it gets double checked from staff again with the GPS.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So, Hayden, looking, I guess we know from our pre-visit from on the day that you're doing, you know, 12 years worth of data on farm.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Can you talk us through, give us a high-level picture of what data you're collecting, how often that is.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I think we said it was weekly, but if you could touch on and then what you do with that data in terms of relaying that back with up the channel to your farm owners and then down to your team as well.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Can you talk us through that?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: When we first arrived on farm, I got introduced to this template and very skeptical at the start, like you would be with anything, and just another job at the end of the day.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: But 12 years down the track, it'd be the one thing I wouldn't change a bit.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So what's in that template?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It's um average farm cover, area in rotation, area growth for the week.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I guess all your stuff that you build your systems around, I guess.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Cows on farm, grain used for the week, just all that stuff that builds a full picture around how that season's gone when you look back at the end of the year.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Guys, just a confidence builder when you get yourself into some situation sometimes and you grow have a look back in those two or three, you know, previous five years where you were, maybe a different time of the year, and look at some of the relevance of what you're going through at the time.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And there's a way out sometimes if you're quite down under the pumps at least.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: And when you take supplement out, I mean it's just good to reference certain parts of the season, just gives you that reliability that you're on the track to a point.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the information is then just fed into our spring budgets, growth rates, especially.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, you look back through now, there's just real consistency through the similar periods.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: There's never you think one one season's worse to another, but you look back through and actually there's certain times that have been a bit challenging, but yeah, very, very similar trends when you look back through those periods.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: We often say, you know, you can't manage what you don't measure.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: And so having all of that data is so important to be able to know exactly where you're at.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Ron, from your perspective, you know, you would have been just chuffed when you saw all the data that Hayden had on his farm.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: But from a farm system specialist point of view, you know, some of that core messaging and core principles that come into pasture management, having that data are is really important, isn't it?
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Absolutely is, and particularly the point you made a moment ago that having that data allows you to validate whether you're on target or not and whether the year is really as bad as it's feeling and how you got out of it in the past and know that you've got a plan to work to.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: And there's a well-known quote along the lines of plans are nothing, planning is everything, and the fact you've got that data to back up your plan to remind you or reassure you of what light is likely to come is really, really valuable in terms of confidence and turning the current situation to your favour over the coming period.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And in terms of um, Hayden, you know, having that data, how much are you using that to feed into what your team is doing day to day and week to week on farm?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: How useful is having that template there to provide them with information for planning?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's massive.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: I think it's just that reliance of you going back referencing certain parts of the year, are we on track?
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: You know, cow performance, are they comparable time to last year?
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: What are the differences?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: You know, fast around, slower round, pre-grozing covers, are they are they all matching up what we've done?
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And then supplement out's another good one to reference to and send potentially are we getting into a pinch patch?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Do we need to be as aggressive as what we're being, or what's that, you know, that next 10 days, two weeks looking like forecasting in front?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: And then yeah, it's just great just to reference that stuff.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Either dips in production, you know it's coming, but can we do something different to try and mitigate a bit of that?
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And I didn't touch on this earlier, but with farm owner being off farm and um farm advisor, it gives them insights every week of what where the farm's at, and they can do the same.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: They reference it, what what were we doing last year, what was that?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: And it's just great conversation pouring every Monday for the catch-up with them and discussing any issues that they can see that I can see.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: You just can't be the numbers actually.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: So it's a massive part of the system.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Hayden, if you could, do you want to talk us through how that first round looks in your business off the back of carbon to ensure that the system and the farm starts a season off well?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: What does pasture management look like in the first round for you guys?
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really try and take it, those high covers, try and do some pre-grazing 35, 3600s, and be strict around those 65 square meters some years.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: It might be more depending on our farm cover at planned started carving.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: But there's flexibility in the system around that.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: But yeah, pretty strict.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: We've tried earlier carving date, sorry, in the first round, you know, the 25th, 24th in those earlier years of September, and it's got us into a pinchy start at that second round.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: First seven days is always good.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: It's that sort of back end of that second round.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess it we've pushed that out another seven days, give or take.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And that's definitely we don't get ourselves into those pinchy situations like we're used to.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Potentially a little bit more defensive, but I think that system's more easily to uh replicate for year to year when you um don't get yourselves into a pinchy situation, I think.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: In that first round, what are your pre-graze targets looking like, and then what type of residual are you aiming to hit in that first round?
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so pre-grazing's anywhere from 3500, 3600 for that first patch, and then obviously your drop-down in covers to 33, 32, and your supplement just increases.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So predominantly inshared feed to hold round up to four kilos has been slightly more, but I think four kilos is comfortable.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: And then your balage top up in those paddocks to maintain those 65 squares.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: And there, so sometimes too, run into areas around it doesn't quite fit the mobs.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: So then we will set stock in that back 0.3 of a hectare, try and collect every single blade of grass that we can rather than just say, oh, there's 0.3 left, so just bloody open up the paddock, should be right.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Because it all compounds.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: You do that over 70 days of 0.2, and all of a sudden you've got three more days at the end of your first round that you wouldn't have had otherwise.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's just something that we've got more and more strict on, I think.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Because it pays dividends at the back end of it.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Ron, and you probably can talk to that just a little bit more in terms of, you know, making sure that that first round residuals are are met and what that means going into Maiden.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, because it all flows through.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: It's whatever we leave today is what we're dealing with tomorrow, both in terms of impact on the cow and quality of pasture.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: And if we keep getting it right, we keep seeing that time and time again.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: If we get it wrong, it's easy to have it even worse next one and it not help us.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: But the focus that you showed around knowing where you want to be 1st of October and being really diligent to get there was pretty evident in the performance that you're achieving, but also in in what we saw and observed in the conversation that we had on the day.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: The other thing that for our listeners that was shared was a really helpful table, I thought, in terms of knowing what your pregased covers are, what your area allocation is, and therefore what supplement you need on a daily basis.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: So I'm sure you calculate it and I'm sure your team calculates it as well.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: But knowing that you've got that reference table, you can easily look along and saying, yep, on today's pasture cover, these cows are going to need about eight kilos of supplement base to meet their intakes.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: And the value of that is in farms and areas where we go from kind of famine to feast, your cows are ready for that feast because you've looked after them and they're ready to eat every blade of grass as we get out of the first round into the second round and on.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: So I'm probably jumping ahead for you, Keely, but that focus that you showed us in the comment you just made around you know that last point three of a hectare cumulatively helps you get to the place where you can utilize every blade very, very well.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: No, I think that segues us really, really nicely, Ron, into that second round and what that looks like and and what we saw on farm last week.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Grass has taken off up in northern Southland, which is uh very welcomed because it's been a bit of a tough old spring.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: But Hayden, do you want to talk us through overall second round management and then into surplus management in paddocks where potentially covers are a bit higher than you would have liked, and we know cows aren't going to eat all of it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so second round comes on, and everybody gets gets a wee bit of a wee bit of a rise and gets all barred up and keen to go because cows are starting to hum and you just want to feed them.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: So it can be, well, I'd say it's probably challenging, if not more challenging than the first round.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: The first round's set because your square meters, you've got your table there, it's set stocking, you know, as long as you're providing what you're meant to provide, happy days.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: So we've just had a bit of a boomer down here for I would say very unseasonal for what we've had the last four or five years, but potentially come back a little bit longer, it's probably pretty normal.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: So we've grown, you know, 30 kilos a day more than demand for the last two weeks, um, leading, well, from last week anyway, last two weeks pre this one.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've had to get aggressive a wee bit around taking supplement out in front, and as well as sort of a topping behind.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I guess the tricky part is not mowing yourself into a hole.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: So there's a balance of what is your bottom line cover, I guess you want to push through to the next round.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: And then on the other side, you don't want to be mowing everything and wasting feed.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: So is there an opportunity to push some of those poorer residuals into a potential supplement next round?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So it's probably one of the more trickier situations currently, because as you know, November 2 can throw a week of poor weather, and you go from growing 92 to growing 68, and then all of a sudden that surplus draws up pretty quick.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: What are average pasture cover levels?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Are you cutting paddocks out of the round to buy off a surplus?
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: We'll go um quite aggressively, not massively high covers, um though it might be 34 to 3600, and then they're potentially only out of the round 10 days, you know, sort of taking that top of the wedge off if it's poorer quality.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: But also I'm happy to graze a 320, 3300 cover paddock if it's good quality and I can get within QE of residual, especially if there's a bit of a poorer patch coming through underneath that top end.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: It's a bit of a balance of what you're looking at now and then what's going to be coming forward in another five to seven days, and then just judgment core on what you think the better quality pasture is.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So I just think the key for us is getting that out, getting it off quickly and getting it back into rotation.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: And then as soon as you've got grass in rotation, it gives you options for what's coming through in that coming two, three weeks.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Hayden, you talked about how you'll happily graze a paddock at 32, 3300.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: In practice, if that means that there's more grass in the paddock than they would need in 12 hours or 24 hours to hit your residual, what do you do?
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Some farmers put cows back for a few hours.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: What do you do?
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: How do you manage that?
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Bit more than desired cover or desired available pasture cover.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so if it's as a case and you know you've got it slightly wrong or there's a little bit more feed in there than what you had, we'll then put cows, we'll set stock the appropriate number for what's remaining in that paddock instead of putting them in and then on shifting them to another break.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And I think we've had real good results out of that.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: We've sort of introduced that last maybe two, three years.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: And I think, yeah, we've had some real good results.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I feel like the cows, they get more evenly fed, everybody's getting a chance at feed.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And I don't think it's any more work, to be honest, as long as if you've got the systems in place and you've got the ability of staff to know and control numbers of what goes into the brakes, I think it's been a bit of a game changer for us, I guess.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: So rather than give all the paddock to all of the cows, do they quarter the paddock, say?
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: And then there's a quarter of ungrazed, and that gets a an appropriate number of cows to graze that out between milkings, and then those cows join their respective mobs again at the next map milking.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correct.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So if there's half a hectare left in that paddock or a hectare left, and there's a mob of 300 cows, it'll be 140 cows will go into that last hectare separate, and then they'll come together in the morning, and then they just go back into that next full break as a full mob again.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And ideally it doesn't happen every day, but uh you just fit the space when you fit the space, I guess.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Supplement, we've touched on a little bit that, you know, you're using it mainly in the shoulders of the season.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: But Ron, in the paddock sessions, how much, you know, was that talked about on farm at the field day?
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And have you got anything else to add in terms of how supplement is used in this system, I guess, to make sure that we're getting the most out of every blade of grass, as Hayden uh said, you know, to get us to that 15 tonne?
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a really clear intent around smart use of supplement to get through the first round, as we heard, and then extend lactation in the autumn, as we also heard.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: There's a little bit of supplement uh that you talk through Hayden terms of use right through the year, and you vary the blend of that depending on likely response to DDG versus straight PKE.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: So that combination is keeping intake up of those cows.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: You talked about, you know, effectively those cows need to be eating around 20 kilos dry meter per cow per day, and that's even in the production that they're achieving and meeting conditions core targets.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: So again, being really clear on what you're needing to achieve, and then using a mix of DTG where it's appropriate, PKE to fill in the gap.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: But you also touched on actually you've got a budget for the year, you've got a very clear target.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: And again, knowing that if conditions go against you, actually revisit and work out how you change that.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: But that supplement achieves a goal and helping utilise pasture growth through this time of high growth, but also achieving your targets through the rest of the season as well.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess too, it's just sometimes overlook that foresight of that.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: But yeah, the lot of stuff goes in at the start of the season to I guess this key with that um reporting system we can reference where we're at right through the season.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: If we've used a bit more supplement what we can, then you know, that gets addressed before we actually run out to save no pinch spots, I guess.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I guess it just means that we can feed the cows all year round, right?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And that milking milk quality and milk quantity is not, you know, some of the detriment of either of that when you've got that plan ahead.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Um, Hayden, I guess you guys do so much planning, and that's what that might be an answer to this question, but where do you think the biggest opportunities are for other farmers to get the most pasture and value out of the pasture in their systems that they're already growing?
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I guess speaking from what I've picked up here and sort of, I guess, that expectation that, you know, there's a value on everything.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So I just I think of like the measuring, having the data there, the reliability of the data, and the consistency of collecting the data.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And you don't know what you don't know.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I know it's a cheesy sum, but you don't.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And then you can't plan if you don't have a plan.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: So, you know, it's a really simple concept, I guess, but it's a hard one sometimes to execute.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I guess from my point to, I guess you've got to have a vision aligned with the person you're working with and the farm advisor, because you've all got to be heading in the same direction, I think.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, yeah, something there's there'll be a key spot somewhere that just doesn't add up.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: So for me, it's just that data collection, those weekly farm walks.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: You know, the strict conversations I have with the owners are weekly, scheduled, and just having those comms really open and clear and everybody's on the same page for me is probably what drives a bit of the production performance around here.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and especially having irrigation in your system too, right?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: You know, that's such a big lever to be pulling or I guess pushing stop on, but knowing when to start and stop that, you know, without using the data that you've got will be quite critical, is it?
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, absolutely.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: It's something also I probably Be overlooked and take for granted because we've been here for a while.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that's a major driver in the production of grouse on farm, definitely.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it's just some real key KPIs on startups, on and offs.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: A lot of it's seeing what the weather's doing, see where the moisture levels are.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And just same thing again, like just referencing similar times through different seasons to see start-up and shut-off time.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: So right, Ron, I just want to throw back to you in terms of residual management through the year.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: What should we be looking for in the paddock to make sure that we're grazing at the right time and achieving residuals, you know, as best as we can?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And can you just explain to us why that matters so much?
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: We did touch on it a little bit earlier, but just, you know, to us, residuals are, I guess, our bread and butter.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: But can you just give us a little bit of info around the science and behind that?
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: The critical thing is residuals effectively set the quality of what's in front of our cows at the next grazing.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: And so what state the paddock is in when cows leave is really critical around what we've got available to offer them next time.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: There's three critical factors.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: What's the target rotation length that we're on?
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: What's the target pregnant that we want?
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: And those two influence the residuals.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: And so it's understanding that those are levers that we've got.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: And we can watch any one of those, but knowing how they fit together.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: And to the comment earlier, if we have got a higher pregnant cover than we want, we've got some options.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: We can ignore it, we'll probably end up with a higher residual, and we'll have to deal with that later.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: We can change allocation and then we can hit residual.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Or we can think about how we change other parts of the system.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: But keeping that conversation going around, have we hit residual today?
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Are we going to the target pregnant that we want?
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Is our allocation matching those numbers?
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: There's simple conversations, and it's great to see those conversations going on live on farm.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: The conversation around, did we hit residual today?
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Well, no, it's a bit higher than I thought we should be.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Let's revisit what we're doing with allocation.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Let's drop another paddock of silage out, or let's slow down and add some silage in so that we do keep pasture growing actively.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: End of the day, we want pasture to grow to its maximum potential.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: Utilize the three leaf principle.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: When it's growing fast, utilize that to come in early.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: And when it slows down, utilize that to grow more grass.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: So it's that combination all the time on the calculator.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Are we hitting residuals?
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: What's our target pre-graze?
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: What's our allocation?
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it just ties in so nicely to that, you know, for every ton of extra pasture and crop harvested on platform over the last 10 years is an extra $350 of operating profit per hectare.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And the title of this series was Pasture to Profit.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It really does, at the end of the day, you know, that is what's driving the profitability of your system, Hayden, is just the amount of pasture harvested off your platform.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Can you finish, Hayden, by telling us, I guess, other than the data that you collect on farm, what's one pasture management lesson that's genuinely changed the way you farm?
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Anything other than the measuring?
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I think measuring's key.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: For me, I think the cows give you feedback and that and they justify what you're you're thinking that cover is.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Well, like everybody knows, the plate's a number.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And then I guess you've got to decipher what that number means.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: So I think the big thing is looking at your cows and just taking note of what your cows and how they're reacting to what you're offering them.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Because I think everybody knows if you go past cows at 10 o'clock and they start walking down the lane for you, you might have just slightly underestimated what was in there or overestimated.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm trying to get through.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: You know, teaching staff at the moment, two new guys on farm.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: You can do all the maths in the office you want, but if you're not gonna go check what the cows are telling you at 10 30 or if you're worried about it, then that's only good for so much, isn't it?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So I mean, without being too complicated about it.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I think the other thing is just for here is just don't get too fast.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: You've got to have grass to grow grass, and when you've got no grass, you can't grow grass, so I don't know, very simple outlook on it.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: But and I think actually that word simple we touched on throughout the course of bringing this event to life, and it was that your system it's simple, but that's like a really great thing because it's repeatable.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And you know, when you've got an absentee owner, like you guys do, having a system that I think I threw the words around, copy and pastable, it's easy.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: It's like everyone knows what's happening, uh, there's not too much complexity behind it.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: You've got really, really good guiding principles that the business adheres to, things like your round length, those, your balance day, or you know, that first round and that just sets up really nicely.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Ron, if someone listening wants to get more value out of their pasture, other than those three principles you touched on just before, is there anything else you would encourage them to look at in their system?
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Another really good thing to look at is to do some benchmarking.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Because again, with data, then we know what we've got to deal with.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: And so work out, back calculator, how much is your farm growing compared to the farm next door, the farms around you?
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: And within farm, how much variability is there within farm?
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Because there'll be some paddocks that probably are underperforming due to management, and some paddocks are underperforming due to things we can't change.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: So everything that's due to management, we can influence, and therefore we can look to grow more pasture and harvest more pasture, turn it more into milk.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: And what I think we uh sometimes overlook is some of the things that appear simple that are doing the basics really, really well consistently.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: And if we didn't get residual quite right today, great.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: We can have another go tomorrow.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: We can get it better tomorrow.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: So that continual revision, looking at what we're doing, continually checking, making a better plan.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: That's what good to great's all about.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: And that's what turning pasture into profit is all about every day.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: And it was really nice.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: What I thoroughly enjoyed about this series that we've just done is having that session for our staff to come along to.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And so we had someone from Dairy Training, and then the course or the content that we delivered was delivered with Dairy Training, just in in terms of being able to share that with farm team members.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: So leaf stage, like you touched on Ron, what a good residual looks like, what that looks like on a plate versus with the eye.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And it was really nice to be able to share that with our farm team members because it's them often at the end of the day that are looking at residuals and feeding that information back through to the likes of yourself, Hayden.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Are we going to get there?
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Are we not?
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And making sure that everyone in your farm team understands what good looks like or what you want good to look like.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: It's really important to make sure that every blade of grass goes down the throat as such.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: So that's really cool.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Ron and Hayden, for dialing in today.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: It's really cool.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Farmers learn much better from other farmers compared to certainly listening to me at the front of a group.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: They definitely listen to you though, Ron.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But I think there's no perfect formula, but it's knowing what's happening right in front of you so that you can make a plan, make a decision, amend something to ensure that the intake of the cows is the level we want it to be at going forward.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: And by having that plan, it just means that, you know, like you said, Hayden, we know what the plan is if things aren't quite going right.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: But if you've got nothing guiding the way, then there's nothing to turn to.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Um and having that data, I think, has been a really nice thing, you know, especially when we go and farm to a farm like yours, we can look back at that data too and know, get a really good understanding for the business.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: So for those listening, think about your own farm.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: What's one decision that you could be making to take a closer look at what's happening on your farm?
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: What's something that you could tweak in your system?
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: You know, I guess potentially it is to, if you're not measuring, then to measure, because like we said, if you don't measure anything, you can't manage it.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: But equally you can't pass that on to farm team members if you're not the one on farm day to day.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, you can find out more on DairyNZ Pasture Management at dairynzed.co.nz.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: But otherwise, we'll hear from you guys again soon.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And yeah, thanks very much for listening to Talking Dairy.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: If you found this episode useful, then share it with someone and your farming team, Mathua.
• 30:31
  Speaker: If you'd like to get connected with DairyNZ's latest advice, research, tools, and resources, whether it's reading, scrolling, listening, or in person, you can visit dairynz.co.nz forward slash get-connected, and don't forget to hit follow to keep up to date with our latest episodes.
• 30:48
  Speaker: As always, if you have any feedback on this podcast or have some ideas for future topics or guests, please email us at talkingdairy at dairynz.co.nz.
• 30:58
  Speaker: Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time on Talking Dairy.