It is a strategy hand-in-hand with relying on pasture to produce farm income.

Craig McWhinney and Kellie Orgill farm on flat to undulating country at Shady Creek, north of Yarragon, Vic. The 102-hectare milking platform on their 162ha dairy farm is next door to the 40ha leased block. A shallow overlay of light soil over a heavy clay base creates a challenge for growing pasture.

All country outside the milking platform is used to run dry and young stock and produce fodder. Most of the farm is dryland, in a winter and spring rainfall district; 5ha of pasture benefits from the opportunity to irrigate with a 20-30 megalitre water licence.

Fodder production

The farm’s fodder production comes off the runoff area (where 12-15-month-old heifers graze) and opportunistic harvesting in the neighbourhood. Only surplus pasture is harvested off the dairy platform – meaning that opportunity varies in any given year.

“We use our runoff area to grow as much fodder as we can,” Mr McWhinney said.

That means as soon as the dry cows graze a block and are moved, fertiliser is applied.

“As soon as I think we’ve got excess pasture beyond what I think the heifers need, I’ll ring the contractor up and tell him I’ve got some silage ready to be harvested,” Mr McWhinney said. “He turns up and we bale it. We cut short, leafy, green, high quality pasture.

“As soon as the bales are moved, the fertiliser truck is on that paddock with a urea and potash blend. The next thing you know, those paddocks are ready to cut in 25 days.”

It means wrapped silage is harvested three times from the runoff areas between mid-September and Christmas for a total of 400 rolled bales.

“We tend to cut eight rolls/ha. It’s not high yielding for quantity, but we do it three times in that three months, and that adds up,” Mr McWhinney said.

About half of the silage harvested each year is bought standing in local paddocks, in an ad hoc arrangement with neighbours, and is buried in a pit.

“I buy standing silage – ad hoc. If a neighbour has paddocks a bit long, I’ll offer to buy the grass,” Mr McWhinney said. “It’s not done every year with every neighbour, it’s an opportunistic arrangement.

“We might put a bit of fertiliser on to boost growth on those paddocks and six weeks later or when it’s ready, we’ll harvest it. We do that as pit silage.”

Mr McWhinney aims to bury the equivalent of 400 rolls – an estimated 200 tonnes dry matter when fed out.

“Putting about 200 tonnes DM in a pit, as insurance for drought or a bad season, takes that pressure away and gives us options for feeding stock,” Mr McWhinney said.

“We’ve used a pit left over from last year and half the rolls made last spring and some carryover from the 2019 harvest. In 2020, we made about 1000 rolls and we’ve still got a full pit of silage. So we’ve got a fair bit of carryover going into winter.”

The pit silage is put through a silage wagon and fed out in the paddock. Round bales are unwound and also fed out in the paddock.

“I can feed out a couple of bales in front in the paddock before the cows are moved into it,” Mr McWhinney said. “And it returns the nutrients to the paddock, which is a result I wouldn’t get if I fed fodder to the cows on a feedpad.

“It just makes sense to grow as much pasture feed as I can and for the cows to consume as much as they can and put it straight in the vat. Cut out all the costs in between.”

He targets 11-12 t/ha DM consumption by the herd – this can get up to 14 t/ha with good seasonal conditions.

Pasture management

Pasture management begins with a focus on enabling cows freshly in-milk to consume as much grass as possible, without relying on fodder. That enables the farm’s income to benefit from fat and protein in the milk.

“I never have production targets per cow,” Mr McWhinney said.

“I’m trying to maximise pasture growth and intake, and minimise our cost of production. Getting timing right is in everything we do.”

For the past 10 years, he has oversown the farm with Bealey perennial ryegrass – at least 10pc and up to 50pc of the farm in any year. Barenbrug Australia recommends an over-sowing rate for Bealey of 16-20kg/ha. Bealey is marketed as a highly palatable tetraploid, is very late flowering with long-term persistence and NEA2 endophyte, making it attractive to dairy farmers.

“High quality, perennial ryegrass pasture is the only thing we plant, graze and harvest. I’m a no-crops farmer,” Mr McWhinney said. “For the last 10 years, we’ve only used Bealey ryegrass, direct drilled in autumn.

“The soil fertility here is woeful, so if the pasture is growing, fertiliser is being applied, so we’ve always got nitrogen going into the system.”

In autumn, he applies urea; in winter, a urea-sulphate blend is broadcast; in spring muriate of potash is blended with the urea. Fertiliser is not applied in summer. Phosphorous is rarely applied.

“We apply fertiliser at a rate of 80kg/ha of urea, and it’s applied following the cows,” Mr McWhinney said.

“In early winter, fertiliser is applied at 75 days. In the spring, application is 25-28 days.”

Pasture rotation is based on the three-leaf stage. In May, Mr McWhinney begins managing pastures for calving.

“All my management today and for the last month or so is to build a start-of-calving target, an amount of grass I want available on August 1,” he said.

“As soon as cows start calving, they’re going onto high quality feed and they’re not restricted by pasture intake. My aim is to get as much pasture as possible down the throats of cows.

“At this time of the year [late autumn] I do a pasture walk every couple of weeks to see how my pasture growth is going.

“Once I hit that target, I try to sustain it. Usually by the first week of September, I’ll put the mower on and start topping paddocks in front of cows. I’ll aim for the whole farm to be dry-topped two-three times before Christmas.”

Three-way cross

The couple milks a three-way cross herd, in a 20-unit swingover herringbone dairy, with stall gates and automatic plant wash. At the peak of the season, they are milking 380 cows.

The cross-bred herd is joined, from late October every year, using only bulls – 50 per cent of the herd is joined to Aussie Red bulls, 30pc to Jersey bulls and the balance to British Friesian bulls. The herd are medium-sized cows with an average weight of 450 kilograms.

“The herd is a random three-way cross and we’re 100pc seasonal calving for seven weeks,” Mr McWhinney said.

“We calve as many cows as we can in as short a time as possible. We don’t do any fertility animal health at all.”

They began drying off cows as usual in early June, knowing they had an empty cow rate of 11pc and a three-week in-calf rate of 67pc.

“We calve half the herd in 16 days. The bulls do a good job,” Mr McWhinney said.

The dairy shed is shut down for four weeks from the start of July for a calving date of August 1 each year. All empty cows are sold.

All heifer calves are kept as herd replacements. “We rear 110-130 replacement heifers every year,” Mr McWhinney said.

Grain feeding

Historic production is 400-420kg/cow milk solids. Grain is fed if the return on investment is sufficient to justify the decision. Grain is purchased as whole barley, from Brown’s Stockfeeds, and milled on the farm before being fed to the herd.

“We aim to make a margin of $2/kg MS,” Mr McWhinney said. “Where we make our profit is not through chasing production per cow; it’s by keeping our costs in check. We keep it simple pretty much.

“If production is down to 400kg/cow – it’s unprofitable to feed grain, I just won’t feed it. Grain prices and milk prices ratio this year is better, and we’ll probably average 450kg MS/cow and expect to feed 1.5 t/cow grain this year.”

Heifer calves receive ad hoc grain, and weaners continue to receive 2kg/day of grain until they are one-year-old. Older heifers graze pasture, and may receive some silage if Mr McWhinney feels they need it.

Grass hay is bought locally to feed to cows on the calving pad.