Stephen and Tania Luckin operate a 500-head dairy farm on 291 hectares and keep a keen focus on producing home-grown fodder – the largest cost in their budget. 

The couple continue to achieve pasture harvest totals in the top 25 per cent of the south-west dairy region and warn of hidden costs in not spending money on fertiliser, seeds and spray.

“(We) grow as much home-grown fodder as we can and each year we develop a strategy to achieve that,” Mrs Luckin said.

Mrs Luckin and farm consultant Phil White will speak at the Grassland Society of Southern Australia’s annual conference this week about using alternative forage crops to fill seasonal feed gaps.

The Hamilton conference – Ready, Set, Grow – focuses on soils, pasture systems, risk management, economics and new technologies, with speakers from across the nation attending the event on Wednesday August 31 and Thursday, September 1.

“Regardless of whether you‘re a dairy, sheep or beef farmer the same principals apply – know what you actually grow and then how to maximise what you grow,” Mrs Luckin said. 

The Luckins use historical data to build pasture growth curve graphs and identify seasonal conditions and potential feed gaps.

Building a feed wedge by using supplements and not beginning a pasture rotation until the average farm cover is around 2,000kgDM/ha are the first steps in creating difference between the pasture available for cows and the pasture grown.

Mrs Luckin said this was enhanced by strategic fertiliser applications during the growing season.

“If you don’t feed the soil, the nutrients aren’t available to grow the grass to maximise pasture production,” she said.

“Pasture and home grown forages are by far the cheapest form of fodder we can buy.

“We pay the associated capital costs regardless of whether we are producing two tonne/ha or eight tonne/ha so it makes sense to maximise what we grow at home.”

The Luckins closely monitor their natural pasture curve and the seasonal outlook to identify likely feed gaps and then develop a strategy to fill those gaps.

“We do a fodder budget in August and fine tune it in November when we know our silage harvest and how our crops are growing,” Mrs Luckin said.

With predictions of a normal spring this year, the Luckins have increased the amount of dryland cropping and introduced the multi-crop strategy after a couple of years with successful maize crops.

The multi-crop strategy includes autumn sowing of oats for a spring harvest, spring sowing of turnips for summer and summer sowing of turnips and annual grass for autumn direct grazing.

Winter wheat will be sown in summer and irrigated to provide late autumn feed. It will be grazed throughout the winter and harvested as silage or hay in the spring.

Dryland Brassica crops will be sown in the spring providing feed for summer.

Mrs Luckin said rotation length is the key to maximising pasture growth, particularly in the cooler months.

To monitor growth rates, Mr Luckin conducts a weekly pasture walk with data analysed on a computer program.