Help from Down Under to get best from grass (From Gazette & Herald)

Help from Down Under to get best from grass

AN Australian university farming expert gave advice to Ryedale farmers at a leading dairy farm on the edge of the North York Moors National Park last week and encouraged them to re-think their grazing system.

Frank Tyndall, of the University of Melbourne, had been invited to Trevor Hodgson's Marfitt Head Farm, at Saltersgate, one of 18 nationwide fact-finding visits to farmers, organsied by the Milk Dairy Council.

Mr Hodgson said: "It is surprising what you can get out of the land without fertiliser, just by managing it properly."

He has some 200 cows on the 210-acre farm and is proving on his land that good grazing procedures increase milk yield at no extra cost.

The aim of the scheme is to grow more grass by rotational grazing by what is known as three-leaf grazing.

Mr Tyndall said that for maximum grass-use efficiency, dairy cow grazing rotations should be at about 30 days. Shorter grazing rotations fail to allow the third leaf of a tiller - the blade that grows the largest - to develop fully. "When farmers graze swards of grass fields, they are not allowing as much grass as there could be."

Leaf size, he said, is influenced by nutrient supply and the sun, and can be manipulated by nitrogen. Three-leaf grazing is the best way to maximise grass growth, says Mr Tyndall, as had been proved on many Australian farms.

Three-leaf grazing is based on plant biology, maximises growth of grass and is simple to manage, he said. It enables farmers to get the most of their grassland said Mr Hodgson.

Fifty farmers from as far away as Northallerton, Whitby and Easingwold attended the event at his farm.

Updated: 11:38 Wednesday, July 02, 2003