Pasture focus key to successful move for Victorian dairy farmers

Becoming a WestVic Dairy Focus Farm within months of arriving at the farm at Jancourt East, Vic, in August 2020 also helped Terry and Shannon Blasche adapt to the challenge of dairying in a completely different environment.

And now after three years of rapid improvements, they feel the farm is well set up to allow them to reap the rewards of their decision to move.

The Blasches were farming at Casino, NSW, and wanted to grow their business but were on a small holding with few options to buy more land.

Coming off the back of three years of drought, south-west Victoria and its promise of good seasons tempted them to make the big decision in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We'd heard down here was like God's country and you don't get droughts," Mrs Blasche said.

The family brought their 260-cow Australian Red Breed year-round calving herd 1700 kilometres to their new 216-hectare Victorian farm.

The Blasches set four major goals when they started as a Focus Farm:

The change to a single autumn-calving was one of the main goals.

In NSW to meet the market demand for flat milk supply, the herd had been calved year round.

But transitioning the herd in one hit was not possible. So it happened in two stages, using a temporary summer calving period to move the spring calvers around to autumn.

The single calving has delivered big benefits - making management easier with concentrated periods on specific tasks. Mrs Blasche said the way payments were set up in Victoria meant better returns overall to calve in just one period.

The herd now comprises about 380 cows, calving from March to June, and they have recently expanded the farm to include a 105ha lease outblock.

The big plus on the new farm has been the ability to grow one type of grass - ryegrass - all year round and not having to manage different winter and summer pasture species.

Rainfall is also more spread out.

The Blasches have undertaken a massive pasture and drainage improvement program in conjunction with their agronomist Glenn Cain, from Webber and Chivell.

"Half of the farm would have been annual pastures when we got here," Mr Blasche said.

"The first year we did nearly half the farm in perennial ryegrass - mostly Matrix. I trialled about 9ha of 150."

Since then, they have renovated about 20ha/year.

Level paddocks have been sprayed out and the perennial ryegrass direct drilled.

Other paddocks have been cropped with various species, including rape, millet, turnip and Pasja brassica/millet before sowing the perennial ryegrass.

Mr Blasche said best results had been achieved when they worked up the paddock before sowing the crop.

The pasture improvement program has led to a big jump in pasture harvest - from 5 tonnes of dry matter/ha consumed in the first year to 8t DM/ha last season.

A carefully planned fertiliser program has also helped. Lime has been used extensively - about 1050 units per year.

"The farm is quite low in fertility," Mr Blasche said.

"And since I have been here the price of phosphorus has been quite high and potassium has been quite high."

Under Mr Cain's guidance, they have worked to just maintain fertility at present.

"But the fertiliser price is down this year, so we are probably going to go with more phosphorus the year," he said.

About 219 units of nitrogen are applied annually.

Pasture rotations are set by leaf stage - with the aim to graze at between 2.5 and 3 leaves.

This means slower rotations in the autumn and feeding silage to try to develop a pasture wedge for the winter. Rotations in the winter are out to 45-50 days.

In the spring as its warms up, paddocks are dropped out of the rotation and cut for silage. They mow and tedder themselves but bring in contractors to bale and wrap the silage. Last year they baled 1600 700kg large round bales of silage.

The wet winters in south-west Victoria have been a new challenge for the Blasches.

They minimise pugging by grazing on dry banks in the wet.

In the lower country they are improving drainage by undertaking a hump and hollow program.

"And that's older pasture, so I am not too worried about pugging them up," Mr Blasche said.

Italian ryegrass has been planted in these older paddocks until the drainage is improved and perennial ryegrass planted.

About 24ha of this drainage improvement has been undertaken - with another 24ha still to be done.

Being a Focus Farm helped the Blasches settle into the new area faster.

"Being able to discuss ideas with the group, hear about others' experiences and then make informed decisions has been fantastic for our business," Mr Blasche said.

"Being new to the area it was also a great way to meet people and many of those involved are now good friends."

Mrs Blasche said it had been fantastic to be able to build some networks from the get-go.

"It's just help us progress a lot more quickly than we would have if we didn't have that group and support," she said.

The Focus Farm experience has also helped bring more discipline to the business - especially around cost control.

"In the last couple of years we've been with the Focus Farm, we've always had to have the figures up to date," Mrs Blasche said.

"It can be a little bit daunting sometimes having your figures out there to show everyone, but it was really good because some people would say 'oh, you know, why is your power bill so high'. There's little things that would come up like that."

Mrs Blasche said it was important to "be smart with your money".

"Make sure you save and budget and put money aside for when you aren't milking as many cows and not getting as much income," she said.

It was also vital to weigh up expenses - for example, if it was affordable to put on more fertiliser.

The Blasches have chosen to use the good milk income from the past couple of years to set up the farm for the future - rather than paying down debt.

Alongside the pasture improvements, they have upgraded the 40-stand rotary dairy with automatic cup removers, retention bars, a teat spray unit, Easy Dairy drafting gate and Easy ID that allows for individual for feeding. This has allowed the dairy to be a one-man operation.

They have also put Cow Manager tags on their cows to use for heat detection and health monitoring. They have also built a new Eco Shelter calf shed and will be installing individual head stalls in that shed.

The next item on their list is to buy a suitable outblock for heifers to replace the leased country.

The Blasches are happy with the decision to make the move to Victoria. "I would do it again anytime," Mr Blasche said.

Mrs Blasche said: "We wouldn't look back and we wouldn't move back, we are very happy with our decision."

One of the surprising aspects has been how much cheaper it was to operate a dairy business in south-west Victoria.

"The cost of production down here is far better than NSW because you've obviously got so many more businesses and there's a lot more competitiveness," Mrs Blasche said.

"The other thing is really in terms of growing that feed when you're in a better climate. You can grow more feed at a lower cost."