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New tool measures forage growth"I came home with a roll of wire and some ideas and we started changing," Fletcher said. "We try to get as much grass into the cows as we can," Fletcher said. By Doug Rich Producers know how many bushels of grain they have in the bin or how many bales of hay they have in the barn. Those are known quantities. But how does a pasture-based dairy determine how many pounds of forage it has available? KBC Dairy uses an electronic rising plate meter and a grazing wedge. Charles Fletcher, his father, Gene; his brother, Kevin; and his brother-in-law Brian Patton, operate KBC Dairy, a pasture-based operation near Purdy, in southwest Missouri. Fletcher is using a new tool called a grazing wedge to help him decide which paddocks need to be grazed and which need more rest. Every week his wife, Melissa, measures the grass in every paddock using an electronic rising plate meter. These measurements are then entered into an online grazing wedge calculator developed by the University of Missouri. Users can input their paddock measurements to monitor their dry matter growth over the grazing season. The service is free to any farmer. "Any farmer can do it if they have a rising plate meter," Fletcher said. "Put the numbers in and it gives you the wedge." The grazing wedge is a graph with a slanted target line that runs across it from left to right. Paddocks on the left end of the graph, at the highest point on the target line, are ready to graze. When that paddock is grazed it is moved to the lowest point on the graph. The target line for Fletcher is 2,700 pounds of dry matter per acre when the cows are turned into a paddock. "We would like every paddock to be on that line as they are growing," Fletcher said. The wedge ranks every paddock in the system. If a paddock drops too far off the target line this could mean it needs fertilizer. If a paddock goes too far over the target line it means there is excess growth and it may need to be mechanically harvested. Something that Fletcher does not want to do, ever. "We don't bale anything off this farm unless it is excess," Fletcher said. Multiply stocking rate by the dry matter intake needs and that equals feed demand. The first week of May, Fletcher recorded a stocking rate of 1.96 and a dry matter intake need of 36 pounds. This meant he needed an estimated growth rate of about 70 pounds of accumulated dry matter per acre per day. The average for all of his paddocks at this point in the spring was 54 pounds of accumulated dry matter per acre. "We try to get as much grass into the cows as we can," Fletcher said. During the grazing season, typically from the first of March through December, the dairy tries to utilize all of the grass they can grow. They can usually count on 240 days of grazing depending on the weather and grass conditions. The farm near Purdy, where Fletcher and his family live, is divided into 52 paddocks. There are few odd sized paddocks but most of these are permanent five-acre paddocks that subdivided into 2.5 acre paddocks with poly wire electric fence. Cows are moved to fresh grass every 12 hours. Fletcher likes to use improved fescue varieties like Jesup MaxQ and a new variety called Advance. This is a soft leaf fescue with the MaxQ non-toxic endophyte. "We also have some acres set aside for summer annual/winter annual double crop," Fletcher said. "We are planting millet right now and in the fall this will be planted to cereal rye." Until 1997 the family partnership was running a conventional dairy operation in southwest Missouri. In June of that year Charles Fletcher attended a grazing school as part of his duties on the McDonald County SWCD Board. "I came home with a role of wire and some ideas and we started changing," Fletcher said. "We had pastures but we were not using them effectively." The changes have been fast and furious since that time. In 1997 they began a program of pasture improvement on their farm, which at that time was located near Washburn, Mo. They created paddocks, initiated a weed control program, and planted orchard grass, alfalfa, and Red River crabgrass. By 2001 the entire milking herd was on improved pastures, except for the dry cows. By 2001 they knew they needed to expand and moved their dairy operation to 260 acres near Purdy and increased their herd from 77 cows to 300 cows. Since that time KBC Dairy purchased land near Lockwood, Mo., and have nearly 300 cows, with all of their heifers on that farm. Fletcher said at first it was hard to get in their minds that they could cut back on the dairy feed. They soon discovered that they did not need as much dairy feed or as much protein as they had been feeding. "The dairy feed is just extra," Fletcher said. "Right now we average 12 pounds of dairy feed per cow per day on an annual basis. The rest is grass or high quality stored forage like alfalfa haylage orcornsilage." That is down from the 25 pounds of dairy feed they fed per cow per day in their conventional dairy. Building paddocks and installing underground water lines is a lot of work but it can be accomplished in a relatively short amount of time. Changing the genetics in the cow herd to match their pasture based strategy takes time. "When we started we had all large framed Holsteins, but now we are crossbreeding with Jerseys and Swedish Reds to produce smaller framed cows with better reproduction and better heat tolerance," Fletcher says. "A few Holsteins have stayed in the herd, but they don't breed back as well." In his breeding program if a cow had a Holstein sire it is bred to a Jersey. Cows with a Jersey sire are bred to a Swedish red bull and cows with a Swedish red sire are bred back to Holsteins. All of the cows are artificially inseminated (AI). There is a palpation rail outside the milking parlor where Fletcher can catch the cows as they exit the parlor. While one man is milking another can catch the cows and vaccinate or AI them as needed before they return to the pasture. Cows are artificially inseminated for seven weeks in the spring before a clean up bull is turned in with them. In the fall they AI cows for about four weeks. Right now KBC Dairy is calving about 70 percent of their cows in the spring and 30 percent in the fall. "We will have adequate heifers to cover us this year so we may hold the fall calving cows until next spring and breed them then," Fletcher said. "Then we can sell them as bred dairy animals." Depending on grass for feed and switching to crossbred cows their milk production has dropped a little since they began their pasture based system. Their actual milk production is 15,000 pounds of milk per cow per year with 3.65 butterfat average. Fletcher adds that is actual market milk not a rolling herd average. "That will decrease as we get more crossbred cows, but butterfat will increase and reproduction will increase giving us higher stocking rates," Fletcher said. They are more interested in pounds of milk per acre than pounds of milk per cow. Their goal is to increase their stocking rate from 1.3 to 1.5 cows per acre. The Easter weekend freeze that did so much damage to wheat and alfalfa crops in Missouri also dropped grass production to almost zero for a few days. But it did provide a good example of the benefits of a pasture-based dairy. During that time Fletcher was feeding straight hay because there was not grass. He figures that his grass costs him $175 per day to feed 250 cows. When he was feeding hay his costs jumped to $790 per day to feed the same 250 cows. That is a difference of $615 per day. "That is the economics of a pasture based dairy right there," Fletcher said. Doug Rich can be reached by phone at 785-749-5304 or by e-mail at richhpj@aol.com. Date: 5/24/07
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