Concentrating on forage strategy is best practice to raise milk yield

摘要

A late, cold spring has held back grass growth across the country, but that's no reason not to make more of both grazed and conserved grass in dairy diets. Dairy farmers are failing to capitalise on their cheapest source of feed, as seen in significant recent reductions in the amount of milk produced from forage. So pronounced has been this trend - which has emerged strongly over the past five years - that, for many farmers, only an increase in milk price over the same period has maintained their margins at a sustainable level. This conclusion can be drawn from the latest results from Promar's Milkminder, which reveal that milk production from forage has declined to 1943 litres a cow (rolling average December 2009), compared with 2642 litres in December 2004. This represents a reduction of more than 26%.