Lupin triticale mix

[Jdunn55]

anyone growing it? Is it as good as this advert makes out? Yield and protein really that high?

 

[sidjon]

anyone growing it? Is it as good as this advert makes out? Yield and protein really that high?

Had grown Triticale for a number of years, but got too expensive for seed and it broke down with rust, most of the extra yield would be straw, now grow oats as it's idiot prof , could add pea or vetch if you need extra protein.

 

[Jdunn55]

Had grown Triticale for a number of years, but got too expensive for seed and it broke down with rust, most of the extra yield would be straw, now grow oats as it's idiot prof , could add pea or vetch if you need extra protein.

It's the protein I was interested in, along with the huge yields. The plan on my off ground is to grow herbal mixes with a large amount of red clover for grazing with heifers/calves/sheep/sucklers doing mob grazing for 4 years and then 4 years of cropping wether that's corn for combining/wholecrop/maize/italian ryegrass mixes for silage, but really want something to provide some extra protein but need to give red clover a bit of a break inbetween!

What's yield like on your oats and what would protein levels be if vetch was added?

 

[som farmer]

heaviest crop we can grow, is hybrid rye, up to 20 acre, then maize behind. This years crop isn't as milky as the analysis suggests it could be, and in fairness, there is a lot of straw beneath the head, we can justify that, in 2 ways, 1st being a decent crop of maize behind it, and 2nd we can buy relatively small amounts of straights, to balance it. We have 18 acres in, mixed with winter vetch, in the hope of increasing the feed value, time will judge. But the more you can achieve with home grown forage, the better. One of the mistakes i made, when i started out, was trying 'to hard', i put in lucerne, and grew maize, with some arable for home mixing, everything worked well, except for the fact, i had removed to much grass/acs from the farm, which limited the grazing to severely. On the grain, i put 60 ton of winter barley, in a shed, mill and mix, plus say 15 ton of goodies to mix with it, and realised the following spring, i had bagged virtually all of that by hand ! You simply cannot do everything at once, looks, sounds right, but in practice, often a different story, we were all young once, keen as mustard, wanting to try this, or that, but you cant do it all at once.
Tritecale, spr, we have grown, it yields well, and simple to farm, lupins are on the 'list' to try, they have an advantage they like acidy soils, but admit to hearing both good and bad, about them, but it all comes down to available acres, grass is the cheapest, are your cow numbers up to capacity ? if not, you might be better off just growing grass, and buying a few more cows.

 

[sidjon]

It's the protein I was interested in, along with the huge yields. The plan on my off ground is to grow herbal mixes with a large amount of red clover for grazing with heifers/calves/sheep/sucklers doing mob grazing for 4 years and then 4 years of cropping wether that's corn for combining/wholecrop/maize/italian ryegrass mixes for silage, but really want something to provide some extra protein but need to give red clover a bit of a break inbetween!

What's yield like on your oats and what would protein levels be if vetch was added?

Will have a look haven't grow any crops for 2 years as ground was to wet when I wanted to drill, had got balsana clover and spring oats in the bag, which would be good protein if I can get it in this spring , best protein levels we got was from Red clover which probably the cheapest option too.

 

[Jdunn55]

heaviest crop we can grow, is hybrid rye, up to 20 acre, then maize behind. This years crop isn't as milky as the analysis suggests it could be, and in fairness, there is a lot of straw beneath the head, we can justify that, in 2 ways, 1st being a decent crop of maize behind it, and 2nd we can buy relatively small amounts of straights, to balance it. We have 18 acres in, mixed with winter vetch, in the hope of increasing the feed value, time will judge. But the more you can achieve with home grown forage, the better. One of the mistakes i made, when i started out, was trying 'to hard', i put in lucerne, and grew maize, with some arable for home mixing, everything worked well, except for the fact, i had removed to much grass/acs from the farm, which limited the grazing to severely. On the grain, i put 60 ton of winter barley, in a shed, mill and mix, plus say 15 ton of goodies to mix with it, and realised the following spring, i had bagged virtually all of that by hand ! You simply cannot do everything at once, looks, sounds right, but in practice, often a different story, we were all young once, keen as mustard, wanting to try this, or that, but you cant do it all at once.
Tritecale, spr, we have grown, it yields well, and simple to farm, lupins are on the 'list' to try, they have an advantage they like acidy soils, but admit to hearing both good and bad, about them, but it all comes down to available acres, grass is the cheapest, are your cow numbers up to capacity ? if not, you might be better off just growing grass, and buying a few more cows.

I'm wanting to do as much as I can from home grown forage/crops and rely as little as possible on the feed reps if I can! Would like to try lucerne at some point but like you say cant do everything all at once! I can comfortably graze 150 cows by my calculations (including reseeding roughly 1/6 evry year) which leaves me with roughly 180 acres of land away from the farm. From that I need to make enough silage to feed everything and graze all youngstock and the sucklers and sheep. Sucklers and sheep need 60 acres of grazing which leaves 120 acres "spare" (the sucklers aren't mine to sell although the numbers are being reduced and likewise with the sheep plus I enjoy them - usually).

With that 120 acres I can do whatever really. But I want to get nutrition spot on if I can for the youngstock and the cows, the sucklers dont matter as such as they'll have good grazing and then be dry for the winter so just need cheap stuff and plenty of it, and like I say rely as little as possible on the feed reps for cake.

If protein is high enough in grazed grass could I get away with a cheap barley blend? Could I grow this myself if I found additional acres? Or am I better off with an expensive but good dairy nut?

With your hybrid rye is it a corn or is it a relative of ryegrass? What's dm yield and could it be fed to dry cows? I want to avoid feeding grass to dry cows if I can.

 

[deleted user 837354]

Your grass silage should be our primary source of protein. Good quality grass is teeming with the stuff and can have significant ME content. Focus on your grass silage first and foremost. Get that right and you can consider the need for the additional starch provided by forage crops. These are one harvest wonders that cost money to grow and they are not without risk.

 

[som farmer]

the lucerne grew really well, and we had a 2 acre block of red clover, as a trial, would grow rc again, before lucerne, just seemed better, few more loads, than the lucerne. We grow Rgrass and rc now, now for silage. But these things have to be tried, then you know. This autumns foul up, think we may have sown the vetch, at to high a seed rate, looks to be 'swamping' the rye, time will tell.

 

[Jdunn55]

Your grass silage should be our primary source of protein. Good quality grass is teeming with the stuff and can have significant ME content. Focus on your grass silage first and foremost. Get that right and you can consider the need for the additional starch provided by forage crops. These are one harvest wonders that cost money to grow and they are not without risk.

That's sort of my plan, I'm not going to be at full capacity for atleast 4 years but more likely 5, so am going to spend the next 4-5 years getting grass spot on with fodder beet as a break crop for anything that needs reseeding before undersowing spring barley with grass the following year. I'm just trying to plan ahead for when I'm at full capacity on 4-5 years time and work out a way to reduce my dependence on bought in feed.

In my head the best way I can see is to calve in the spring, get them out grazing either by mob grazing or else just continuing with strip grazing. Feed either a blend or cake in the parlour and top up with rolled barley in the feed troughs. Then once winter hits house them and feed something or combination of things. It's just working out what is best to feed. If protein of the crop is only 10% I'm going to need to feed a dairy cake of atleast 18% but if the protein is upwards of 18% I can get away with a cheap blend still.

 

[deleted user 837354]

I've grown red clover as a pure stand before for various people. Works well but needs a good seed bed and good P and K IMO. Responds to being fed with manure/slurry too. Slower than grass to get going in spring but makes up for it with later cuts in the season. Deep rooting and will grow in a drier time more readily than grass.

Lucerne is similar in many ways. Better on land that drains nicely.

 

[Jdunn55]

I've grown red clover as a pure stand before for various people. Works well but needs a good seed bed and good P and K IMO. Responds to being fed with manure/slurry too. Slower than grass to get going in spring but makes up for it with later cuts in the season. Deep rooting and will grow in a drier time more readily than grass.

Lucerne is similar in many ways. Better on land that drains nicely.

The only issue I have with the red clover is the need for it to have a break. If I could continuously grow it year on year with a reseed after 4 years it would be perfect, but from what I can gather it needs atleast a 4 year but ideally 6 year break inbetween crops to stop disease?

 

[som farmer]

strip graze, and back fence, simplicity is king. But if you are spr calving, you wont need much more than fodder beet, and hay/straw should you ? We are going to grow fodder beet for the first time this spring.

 

[deleted user 837354]

The only issue I have with the red clover is the need for it to have a break. If I could continuously grow it year on year with a reseed after 4 years it would be perfect, but from what I can gather it needs atleast a 4 year but ideally 6 year break inbetween crops to stop disease?

I've never had anyone try to grow it back to back. All things go better when rotated, it's just the way of things and Grandad knew it as well as anyone. Put a spring barley crop in between them or something?

The weed ingress will probably be an issue by then anyway.

 

[Jdunn55]

I've never had anyone try to grow it back to back. All things go better when rotated, it's just the way of things and Grandad knew it as well as anyone. Put a spring barley crop in between them or something?

The weed ingress will probably be an issue by then anyway.

That's what I'm trying to work out, what rotation is best, for yield, protein, energy etc

 

[Beef farmer]

Why do you want all this protien? Your cows will be dry when housed, and graze all the protien they need

 

[More to life]

Red clover and Lucerne can be quite tricky crops to grow to much like hard work for me anyway.

 

[Jdunn55]

strip graze, and back fence, simplicity is king. But if you are spr calving, you wont need much more than fodder beet, and hay/straw should you ? We are going to grow fodder beet for the first time this spring.

It depends on when I calve, I can go early spring (february march) which means they would be dry in January/february and stale in november/december so like you say wouldnt need much quality at that point

But alternatively (as pointed out in the all things dairy thread) the contract is perfect for a late spring calver. So if I calved in April/may instead I would have loads of milk when its wanted. But I could also then push for milk in the winter up until the end of december and then stop pushing and jus tlet them naturally dry up in January before drying off. In which case I could do with some better quality grub for the autumn/winter ei: maize? Wholecrop? Silage? Corn? Then what about youngstock

 

[Jdunn55]

Why do you want all this protien? Your cows will be dry when housed, and graze all the protien they need

To keep yields up at the end of lactation and therefore not need a dairy cake but keep with blend thereby cutting costs? Especially if calved later in say april to take full advantage of the contract?

 

[Beef farmer]

To keep yields up at the end of lactation and therefore not need a dairy cake but keep with blend thereby cutting costs? Especially if calved later in say april to take full advantage of the contract?

Silage and cake in the parlour. It doesn't get much cheaper.
I appreciate your contract, but would still aim for calving 20th Feb. Get that april/may grass into the cows at peak

 

[Jdunn55]

Red clover and Lucerne can be quite tricky crops to grow to much like hard work for me anyway.

I've found red clover really easy and good personally. I've no experience of lucerne but from what I've heard it can be a pain