Growing and Feeding High Quality Forages and Grains
This winter, NOFA and UVM Extension (Heather Darby) organized workshops on strategies to keep feed costs low. Farmer who helped teach these workshops included Guy Choiniere, Earl Fournier, Earl Ransom, Luke Rainville, Brent Beidler, Joe Hescock, Dan Tilley and Jack Lazor. They shared their experiences with growing forages, corn silage, small grain balage and grain.
Rick Kersbergen from Maine Extension presented research on organic dairy farms in VT and ME from 2005 showing 30-38% of operating expense was purchased feed, and that from 2007 to 2008, the price of 18% grain increased 45%. This information set the tone for discussion for the rest of the workshop, making it clear that the best way to control feed costs is to look at the amount, type and quality of the forages, pasture and other feeds grown on the farm. As an example, Kersbergen showed us that if you increase your forage quality from 14% protein to a 17% on 100 acres of land, you have a potential savings of $24,000 from lower grain cost.
Below are some key points presented by some of the speakers.
Notes from these workshops are available (contact Sarah Flack at NOFA satoreja@gmail.com).
- The cheapest way to make milk is good grazing management for as many months of the year as possible.
- Grow cool season perennial grasses with legumes. These high protein perennial crops are less expensive to grow than the warm season annuals.
- Improve forage quality by harvesting crops when plants are young and minimizing time between mowing and baling or ensiling.
- Maximize dry matter intake (DMI) from forages:
- Higher quality forage allows more DMI
- Aim for at least 60 % of ration from forage. Many of the farmer speakers were feeding 75% or higher forage rations.
- The more DM intake the cow eats, the more milk she can make. Karen Hoffman NY Natural Resources Conservation Service presented information showing that for every pound of additional DMI you can get 2 lbs more milk.
- Don’t overfeed protein. This common problem not only wastes money, but will cause health problems and lower milk production. If you are feeding high quality grass/legume forages or pasture you need to switch to a high-energy low-protein grain. Test forages, watch the manure and use MUN (milk urea nitrogen) tests to see if your cows are utilizing protein well.
What about crops such as grain, small grain silage, warm season grasses such as millet or sorghum-Sudan for grazing or haylage? For farms who have the right soils and access to equipment these crops can be a way to assure a regular supply of farm-grown high-quality feeds. For other farms it is clearly best to keep the focus on producing perennial forages and balancing the ration with purchased energy sources.
Several farms in Vermont are growing organic small grains and corn to sell or use on their own farm. Additional equipment is needed if grain is harvested instead of ensiled. Discussion at these workshops included yields, varieties, crop rotation, weed control, planting, cultivating and harvesting equipment, as well as drying, and processing equipment needed for different types of grains. Here are a few of the farm/crop profiles from the workshops.
Jack Lazor is in his 30th year of growing grains at Butterworks farm where they milk 40 jerseys and make organic yogurt. They grow wheat, barley, oats, mixed grains, flax, sunflowers and triticale. They get many varieties from Canada which has a similar climate. They plant winter grains whenever possible because they can start growing in early spring before the weeds. For spring planting he likes to get the wheat in very early but barley does better once the soils warm up. Jack prefers tine weeding small grains pre emergence and has also done some tine weeding of small grains when they up but still fairly small. Jack is feeding ear corn this winter with a barley/peas mix (barley/pea mix was grown together) with a small amount of soybeans to balance the ration.
Earl Fournier from Swanton transitioned to organic from a conventional non grazing system. Their focus is on high quality grasses/legume crops and they don’t grow any corn. They feed about 70% or higher forage in the ration. Their herd average is now a little over 20,000 lbs though it did drop much lower when they first transitioned to organic, particularly when the cows were adjusting to a pasture system. They now intensively graze 80 milking cows on approximately 100 acres. Earl developed his grazing system on some of his highest quality cropland. With the help of NRCS cost sharing programs, he was able to invest in grazing infrastructure, which includes gravel lanes, high tensile fences, and water piped to every paddock. His pastureland is a mix of perennial ryegrass, orchard grass, Kentucky blue grass, red clover, and white clover. He grazes his hay fields, and seeds them with a mix of brome, timothy, meadow fescue, orchard grass, alfalfa, and red clover. He has also tried grazing some BMR sorghum-Sudan grass. Earl said if were to transition to grazing over again, he would immediately cut the haylage out of the TMR to help the cows start grazing more efficiently. Once he switched from haylage to dry hay and balage, the system worked much better. In addition to pasture, they store forages, haylage, balage and dry hay.Guy Choiniere from Highgate ships organic milk from 65 cows. He grows all his own protein feed from forage crops, feeds no more than 10 to 12 lbs of grain (purchased) per cow and has an 18000 lb herd average. He puts corn silage mixed with grass silage in the silo, and also makes wrapped and dry round bales. He uses open pollinated corn varieties planted at 30,000 + seeds/acre. Corn is grown for one year and then rotated to sod for at least 4 years. They use flex tines and in-row cultivators on the corn for weed control but mostly depend on rotation to keep weed population low to begin with. When seeding back to sod, they use a diverse mix to make sure that something will grow well in the varied soil types and moisture conditions. He also likes the variety of root diversity and soil organisms from having many types of plants in his meadows. They do regular soil testing, do some sub soiling to reduce compaction and are working to build soil organic matter. His soil maintenance program right now includes manure & compost, lime, sulpomag, boron, zinc and manganese, soft rock phosphate and gypsum.
Earl Ransom is from Rockbottom Farm in Strafford where they milk 49 cows and bottle their own organic milk. Last year they produced corn silage, oat/pea silage, dry hay, alfalfa and grass silage. To improve hay quality they are now using wide swaths and bale hay the same day at about 55% moisture and wrap it. Earl likes to grow oats/peas instead of alfalfa because on his limited acres he can get better tonnage than alfalfa and it rotates well with his corn. In past years they’ve also grown triticale with the peas. He likes to seed his hay/clover/legume crop after he harvests the pea/oat/triticale. For soil fertility they use a lot of compost which they make from the bedded pack as well as a small amount of lime and sulpomag. In the past they have done a lot of soil and land improvements on the farm. They now do soil testing and only add compost unless the soil test indicates that minerals are needed.
Louis Rainville and his family in Highgate milk 75 organic cows and grow all their own forages and grains including soybeans, corn, peas and oats in a rotation with sods. Soybean growing at Rainsville’s has been fairly successful with good yields. Beans are roasted before storage and they use a grinder mixer to prepare grains for the cows. He’s found that weeds often indicate soil fertility imbalances and that crop rotation as well as timing of planting and cultivation are all important in weed control. In the corn they use a tine weeder, rotary hoe, and a mid-mounted cultivator. For grain harvest, Louis talked about the importance of having a well maintained combine to prevent cracking grain at harvest which can result in mold and micotoxin development. Grain and bean drying is essential to prevent mold or heating or micotoxins and it can also be helpful to test for moisture content.