Shropshire Farming Talk: A four-point plan to improve forage quality
You may have read that the team at Wynnstay has launched a Forgage4Profit campaign this spring, to maximise the quality of homegrown forage.
The four-point programme aims to improve each stage of forage production, and covers soil health, seed selection, crop preservation and ration formulation.
We undertook analyses on 1,228 forage samples, and despite the target digestibility value for forage being>70, over two-thirds of the samples were less than 70 digestibility value, with 12% less than 60.
This flagged to us an opportunity to improve the quality of forage to improve performance.
As an example, according to Kingshay’s December 2022 cost report, the amount of milk produced from forage averages just 2,900 litres, but the best farms achieve 5,300 litres of milk from forage.
We know that forage quality is essential to drive feed efficiency. For every 1,000 litres of milk from forage this equates to approximately 460kg of concentrate feed, thus by increasing homegrown forage quality significant feed cost savings can be made.
This is becoming important with many milk processors offering milk producers incentives to reduce soya and improve their feed efficiency, which is driven by the quality of forage.
Forage4Profit starts with soil health and having balanced soils. About 80% of soil samples carried out by Wynnstay are the incorrect pH. Once these imbalances have been corrected, attention should turn to seed selection.
Seed selection should be specific to each farm and will depend on soil type, rainfall and how much forage is required alongside quality targets.
When we plant a seed in the ground on a dairy farm, the end-product is not necessarily a crop – it’s a litre of milk.
Crop preservation is critical, once cut crops should immediately be tedded, wilted, and picked up within the shortest possible time.
The final part is balancing the rations. The complete diet is only as good as the forage foundation; the best results are achieved with high-quality forage and balanced concentrates.
Ultimately, improving the quality of home-grown forage, improves performance, reduces costs and helps to reduce farms’ environmental footprint.
For more detail on Forage4Profit go to wynnstay.co.uk/forage-for-profit
David Howard, Wynnstay head of dairy services
