341: Making the best silage for dry cows
Written by Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board
Milking cows and dry cows have very different requirements from their diet. What might be high quality silage for one animal is another’s poison! As forage makes up the major part of a cow's...
I’ve got an unproductive field of grass that’s mainly meadow brome. The plan was to hay it this year but with it being so dry I can’t see there being anything there worth mowing.
I’m still an amateur to growing cereals and a cover crop virgin so be gentle…
I’m thinking:
Burn off the grass in...
With high feed costs jeopardising profitability, dairy and beef producers are being encouraged to utilise proven feed additives to make diets more cost effective and flexible, replicating the approach taken in monogastric diet formulation.
“Fine tuning ruminant diets with proven feed additives...
It's not been trumpeted much by WAG and the first I heard about it was last week, but a new grant scheme is available in Wales, with the first application window now open. The 'Small Grants - Efficiency' is very similar to the previous FBG, but with a minimum grant claim of £1000 (max £12k). It...
Written by William Kellett from Agriland
Following a very dry start to 2022, baled silage can be prone to soil contamination due to dust and slurry being incorporated into bales, said Daniel Robinson from agricultural testing specialist Eurofins Agro UK.
“If slurry is not incorporated into...
We're in a CS agreement this year forward. One of the options I reluctantly agreed to was the wholecrop option. It didn't seem that difficult to comply really but I didn't fully investigate the rules. There are only 5 active ingredients allowed with AB7. The fields we've put in as AB7 fields are...
I would be interested in hearing opinions on target milk yields of autumn calving cow calving September/October and going to grass last week of March early April depending on weather
After turnout in the spring Would you go for a higher yield where the cow gets grass and cake or lower yield and...
I know disc mowers are more popular than drum mowers but I really dislike my Krone disc mower. It's on its fifth season, it's unreliable and is hard to get as tidy a job as with the vicon drum mower we used to have.
Looking at alternatives, has anyone got a Weaving drum mower which I think are...
Written by cpm from CPM Magazine
Download PDF Ten years of producing a diverse range of crops to feed a large gas-to-grid business has reinforced the critical importance of efficient forage conservation at a farm in Kent. CPM visits to find out more. We’re primarily an arable farm that has...
Written by Richard Halleron from Agriland
Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association (NIGTA) chief executive, Gill Gallagher, has confirmed that meal rationing for livestock production purposes is not on the cards for next winter, at least not yet.
But she is making no secret of the fact that...
Written by Richard Halleron from Agriland
This week’s Balmoral Show has seen a wide range of updates provided regarding the current state of agriculture in Northern Ireland, including an update from Ulster Bank.
Significantly, the AgriSearch / Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) forage survey has...
Written by Richard Halleron from Agriland
Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) policy manager, James McCluggage, has criticised Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) officials for their no-show at his organisation’s Balmoral Show fodder update meeting this week.
He spoke at...
So I've got 50 acres of silage ground that I'm hoping to put into gs4 herbal ley autumn of 2023.
However, I'm looking to plough and reseed it this autumn in 1 year ley, as this will give me the opportunity to level it out this year, spray it next autumn and direct drill the gs4 into what then...
Last year we harvested spring barley in a 20 acre field then moved straight to winter barley in the same field. After the winter barley harvest this year we want to rotate the barley to a different silage field and grow grass on it again, but my dad mentioned growing forage rape on this field...
Historically we’ve always fed cake and straw and they’ve done very well and it suits our system as we’ve not got any fixed facilities for them so we can just use tubs and a ring feeder.
with cake price climbing higher we need to consider the alternatives as see how others are doing it.
We fed...
I’ve had a mare of a calving time this year from abortion to cryp calves that won’t suck and really have had enough of the f…ing things pretty well convinced myself that they’ve got to go .
I love to look at a field of great looking cows and calves but I’m not getting any younger kids are not...
338: AHDB Beef & Lamb: Reducing inputs and understanding soil tests pt1
Written by Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board
This Food & Farming podcast episode is part one of two episodes which follows the journey of Beef & Lamb Strategic Farmer Chris Elkington and independent consultant...