Feeding-out to reduce soil damage - Our Land and Water

What are the potential benefits of adopting a dispersed forage feeding approach? This approach is being tested on a North Canterbury farm. The kale crop is growing well, meaning there is plenty of feed across the farm. Harvesting of the crop has begun, as has grazing in-situ. Follow-up measurements will be undertaken in the next couple of months. This fascinating update is on Our Land and Water facebook update.

North Canterbury farmer started harvesting his kale crop during the drought of 2021, then feeding it out in different paddocks to ensure all stock had feed. This led them to wonder about the benefits of a feeding-out or zero-grazing approach that disperses feed across wide areas, with the aim of reducing the damage to soil and water quality associated with winter grazing.

A project led by Sarah O’Connell from The AgriBusiness Group has been investigating the impacts this new approach has on the whole farming business.

In October 2021 the team took soil measurements to establish the baseline data for their research, which included visual soil assessments, water infiltration and penetrometer readings taken across several paddocks, including paddocks to be harvested and grazed this coming season, and paddocks that had been harvested, grazed and fed out on in the previous season.

The crop is growing well with above average rainfall through the months of December, January and February, meaning there is plenty of feed across the case study farm. Recent crop measurements came back with positive dry matter yields of 18.3tDM and 12.3MJME/kgDM. Harvesting of the crop has begun, as has grazing in-situ. Follow-up measurements will be undertaken in the next couple of months.

The team is in the process of completing an Overseer nutrient budget to compare a standard graze in situ against the harvested scenario. They are unsure if they will see much variation, but it is an important exercise as there will be a difference in the concentration of stock on a paddock for a duration of time.

We look forward to sharing the results of the project later this year.

Scott Hassall, farmer and Simon Thorne, Agronomist taking crop cuttings to measure dry matter and crop nutritional qualities.