Pre-Trial Anecdotes

They struggle to put words to it, but all team members agree that there have been noticeable behavioural changes in the stock when grazing regenerative paddocks. They are more content and seem to prefer the diverse pastures over the conventional ryegrass/clover and they do not stand at a break and get noisy, as seen in conventional paddocks. They appear to be more relaxed and ruminating more on the diverse pasture, something that we will confirm during the trial with our rumination collars.

Visually, their condition improved, and their coats were shinier, their excreta was also more formed and less runny. They have also noticed the appearance of ‘happy lines’ which are horizontal folds across the ribs, typically on the middle to lower third of the rib cage and are considered a good indication that a milk cow is getting a balanced diet with adequate minerals.

In terms of diverse pastures, we were disappointed by the shoulder growth of the regenerative paddocks, as we were expecting it to perform better in the cooler months. Instead, it started to get going in October and was at its peak in December. For the diverse paddocks that were sown in the 2019-20 season, it appears that the best paddocks are getting better, while the worst paddock has gotten worse. This is a concern as we need to identify tools to get out of the downward cycle when it does occur. We suspect differences in soil biology may be responsible for this and it is something that we are investigating.

For the first 20 or so days after grazing the diverse perennial pastures, it appeared that only ryegrass was regrowing, however the longer the paddock is left, the more diversity returns. Days 20-30, species like chicory and plantain begin to take off and in between days 30-40 you see others like lupins and clovers. This has led us to conclude that we need to be on a 35-40 day round to allow for diversity to persist, something that we will continue to observe throughout the coming season.

We’ve been grazing our diverse paddocks at 4500-5000 kgDM/ha and leave a target residual of 2000-2500 kgDM/ha. It was challenging for our farmers to break the conditioning they have around leaving low and tidy residuals, but they have succeeded in doing so, and now comment that the paddocks do not look overly untidy, and they were expecting much worse.

We were very encouraged by the persistence of plantain in our diverse mixes, something that we have struggled with in our conventional paddocks. We hypothesise that by having longer round length, the plantain was able to self-seed and re-establish well in its second season and we hope to continue to see positive results in the third.

Our diverse paddocks sown in 2019 have not received synthetic N fertiliser since their transition over 19 months ago and we have all been surprised with how well they have performed. We do apply 10 L of fish hydrolysate following the cows, but this equates to roughly 30 kgN/ha/year. The colour of the paddock has been good, and growth has been comparable to the conventional side. This was an area that our team had the most apprehensions about as they did not believe we could cut N fertiliser without causing a significant financial impact. Now after two seasons, they are not concerned, commenting that in December some of the regenerative paddocks looked like they had twice as much N as the conventional, based on colour and growth. Visually, their condition improved, and their coats were shinier, their excreta was also more formed and less runny. They have also noticed the appearance of ‘happy lines’ which are horizontal folds across the ribs, typically on the middle to lower third of the rib cage and are considered a good indication that a milk cow is getting a balanced diet with adequate minerals.

The team was impressed with the outcomes of high-density grazing on pasture quality, saying that the quality improved after being trampled effectively. However, we are also aware of the increase in workload that arises from this grazing model, that requires multiple (6+) shifts per day. We are conscious of not overloading our team, especially as this trial is already highly demanding, so we will be using high density grazing strategically throughout the season, in paddocks where we have lost pasture quality.

There is a clear difference between irrigation requirements for the two systems. We suspect this is due to both the diversity and the longer cover found in the regenerative paddocks. We have put meters on our pivots to accurately quantify this difference next season, but the manager estimates 30-40% less water on the diverse paddocks.

Typically, our SCC creates an inverse bell shape throughout the season, with it being lower in the summer and higher on the shoulders. However, this year our SCC never increased after the summer and remained low through the end of the season.