Ecklin South's Krybolder family uses a simple grazing management system

The family takes a carefully thought-out approach to grazing management to maximise what can be grown on the farm and fed to the herd.

The family - Tony and Catherine, their son Michael and his wife Cassie - milks about 430 cows on 186 hectares at Ecklin South. The herd is a mixture of breeds - Holstein, Jersey, Kiwi-cross - but predominantly Holstein-Jersey cross.

Young stock are run on two outpaddocks - one 32ha and the other 28ha - which are also cut for silage.

About 50ha of land can be irrigated with a hose-and-reel system, helping to provide valuable feed in the shoulder seasons.

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They have just bought an adjoining 93ha beef property, which they plan to upgrade to extend the milking platform and potentially grow the milking herd to 450-500 cows.

Michael Krybolder returned to the farm four years ago.

He said the family was committed to using modern science to underpin its farming system but was also committed to ease of management.

Cows were calved down in the autumn, starting in early March through to the middle of May, because that best suited the climate and growing season in that area. The irrigation guarantees some feed if the break in the season is late.

"We just want to calve down cows in the dry. There are more daylight hours at that time of the year," Michael said.

In most years, the entire herd is dried off over the summer, which makes management easier, as they are only focusing on calving and calf rearing at one time of the year. It also means most years they don't have to totally rely on silage or hay to feed animals during the summer with dry cows able to tidy up the pastures. "It means when it is wet later in the year and we don't have many daylight hours, we are just concentrating on milking them and getting them back in calf," Michael said.

They milked about 100 cows through the summer this year because the excellent season meant there was feed available, a staff member was committed to managing the workload and the good milk price provided a decent return.

The entire farm is sown down to late-flowering perennial ryegrass.

Michael said perennial ryegrass suited the farm's climate, which has an 850-millimetre average annual rainfall, only a few days of extreme heat in summer with the maximum temperature usually in the 25-30 degree Celsius range and cold, wet winters, but few frosts.

The perennial ryegrass pastures have proved persistent on the Krybolder farm - something Michael puts down to the varieties chosen by his father Tony and careful management in the winter.

A lot of the farm is sown down to Bealey. "Dad likes that grass. That's been his go-to for a lot of paddocks," Michael said.

Other varieties used include Matrix and Ceres One50, while some paddocks that were sown down to Notman Seed's Vatbuster before the farm was purchased are still reasonably productive.

Paddocks are resown as required, particularly those that have been damaged in a wet winter, with rape/turnip summer crops used as part of the renovation program.

RELATED READING: Grazing to minimise pugging

No summer crops were sown in the past two years because the seasons were so good and they had plenty of silage and conserved feed on hand. This meant all the paddocks were in the grazing rotation from the break, giving them a head start in the autumn. In a late-breaking season, newly renovated paddocks are sometimes not able to be grazed until the middle of July.

But hot, dry summers can knock the perennial ryegrass. South-west Victoria copped a particularly brutal summer in 2018 - the year the St Patrick's day fires wiped out large parts of the countryside. "We had to reseed about 80 per cent of the paddocks because once the rain did come none of our ryegrass shot again," Michael said.

Grazing management is the key to making the system work. When Michael returned to the farm, he completed Dairy Australia's Feeding Pastures For Profit.

It helped reinforce the fundamentals of good grazing management, which his father was already following, as well as providing some useful tips and tools.

They aim to graze paddocks at the third-leaf stage or at canopy closure. Post-grazing residual is assessed using the index finger rule - so at 4-6 centimetres.

Michael estimates the amount of grass needed and will split paddocks using a strip fence if needed to allocate the right amount.

They also keep a close eye on cow behaviour to inform their grazing and feeding decisions - something Michael learned through the Feeding Pastures For Profit course.

If cows are leaving too much grass in the paddock, they cut back on the grain or silage being fed. If milk production drops, they lift the amount of pasture allocated or increase the amount of conserved feed in the diet. Fresh cows are fed 6.5 kilograms of grain in the bail each day.

"If you have your finger on the pulse with what cows are eating and leaving behind and their behaviour ... then your paddocks are being managed well anyway," he said.

Wet conditions in winter are the biggest grazing challenge. "We do get punished in winter with wetness and pugging as we don't have a feedpad," Michael said.

They manage this by giving the cows a larger grazing area and feeding oaten hay along the sides of laneways before grazing to minimise damage to paddocks. "They waste a bit, but the bits they don't eat are good for them to walk on in winter and it's usually only for short periods of time," he said.

Michael said at times the maximum grazing rotation in winter was not as long as it should be - 20-30 days rather than 40-50 days. It also meant pastures were often grazed well before third-leaf stage towards the end of winter.

He hopes the new property will help alleviate that issue, although he said he would need to be careful that the cows were not walking too far.

His father has also implemented a couple of simple farm improvements to try to limit damage to paddocks in winter.

A large number of paddocks have back gates, so cows don't have to walk across already grazed areas to exit paddocks.

They have also installed second troughs in the back part of many paddocks for the same reason. They are continuing to do this across the farm as time and resources permit.

"It's just being smart with your wet weather management because we don't have a feedpad," Michael said.

His father also manages the fertiliser program for the farm. Paddocks receive a base application of fertiliser in the autumn. Silage paddocks will sometimes receive extra potassium after they have been cut.

Nitrogen is applied to paddocks postgrazing at a rate of 100 kilograms a hectare. Michael said owning their own tractor and ATV fertiliser spreaders was vital to allow them to do this.

One of the tools Michael picked up from Feeding Pastures For Profit course was using pegs or blocks to manage the paddock rotation. Under this system, a line of pegs with one representing every paddock is used to work out which paddocks are coming up for grazing in the rotation. As paddocks are grazed, the peg is moved to the back of the line.

The peg system is particularly helpful as the farm is an amalgamation of older farms, including a former sheep property, so the paddocks aren't evenly sized. Michael uses the Fields Area Measure app to allocate break feeds and work out the size of the paddocks.

As an example of how he uses the system, when he designates a paddock as a possibility to be cut for silage, he turns the peg to the side with red paddock numbers. When it comes towards the beginning of the line of pegs (when it is ready to graze again), Michael can decide if he needs it for feed or if it is indeed surplus and can be skipped in the rotation and be harvested. If he needs it for feed, the peg is turned back to the side with black writing and the paddock is added back into the rotation. Otherwise, it stays showing a red paddock number until it is cut for silage, then moved to the back of the peg rotation.

"The peg system gives me a starting point on where to go look for the next best feed," he said.

Michael said their simple farm system was profitable and resilient. It was able to withstand lower milk prices, although during those low-price periods, they could not carry out significant capital improvements on the list. "With a fair milk price, the business can move forward," he said.

He encouraged anyone who had not completed a Feeding Pastures For Profit or similar course such as Target 10 to do it.

"If you think your pasture management is something you could improve on or you find your systems aren't that profitable because you are regularly feeding cows high amounts of bought-in feed, I'd definitely look at learning how to maximise what you can grow on your own land," he said.

The Dairy Australia Feeding Pastures For Profit program aims to provide participants with the underpinning knowledge, skills and practical tools to better manage their pastures.

It helps farmers determine how much to allocate to their herd to directly graze each day and the amount of supplement they need to be feeding to be in the profit zone.

The course consists of seven sessions held across a 12-month period.

Two theory days are held in autumn are followed by on-farm days in autumn, winter, early spring, late spring and summer.

Dairy farmers looking to find out more about the course should contact their local Dairy Australia regional team.

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