WEST Gippsland farmers flocked to a dry conditions information session at Lardner this week.
The Tactics for Dry Times event was held on Wednesday at Rob and Jenni Marshall’s dairy farm, where the lack of winter and spring rainfall is starting to bite.
Tactics for Dry Times is a Dairy Australia/GippsDairy initiative that is being rolled out across Gippsland during November and December.
While West Gippsland still has plenty of green paddocks, Rob Marshall said no-one should be fooled into thinking dairy farmers in the district are not affected by the widespread dry conditions.
“Not too many people have seen it this dry at this time of the year,” Rob said.
“It looks green, but when you put cows into a paddock that should last two milkings and it only lasts one, it shows there’s not much growth there.”
Rob said he already needed to re-assess his plans for maximising feed after early crops failed.
“We have tried some summer crops, but unfortunately they have not been very productive,” he said.
“We’ve locked into a grain contract, so we know where we are going, and have inquired about buying hay.
“Silage-wise, we are only about 50 per cent of what we normally do, so it’s just a case of suck it and see.”
For Tactics for Dry Times facilitator Matt Harms, Rob’s story is sadly similar to the situation of other farmers he has been talking to across Gippsland.
“The fundamentals are the same … people are low on silage, pasture growth has been slow and people are worried about what lies ahead,” he said.
“What is different here is that there has been a bit of rain which has been enough to generate that little bit of extra pasture growth, allowing the start of silage and hay feeding to be delayed, which will certainly make a big difference.”
“The problem is that people’s silage yields are already down, so we will need a lot of extra feed to top up on what we’ve got.”
Tactics for Dry Times, which is funded through the dairy service levy, has already been rolled out at Yarram, with sessions at Inverloch (30 November) and Denison (11 December) still to come.
GippsDairy projects and events co-ordinator Karen Romano said an ongoing theme of the sessions so far had been developing a plan and sticking with it.
“It really is important that farmers, whether they have been at a Tactics for Dry Times session or not, talk to someone that they respect about developing a plan for coming months,” she said.
“It’s about working out feed strategies, cow numbers, water needs and anything else that will be influenced by the dry conditions.
“Having a well-developed plan will show farmers where they stand and offer a clear path through a potentially tough few months.”
