WHAT started as a causal conversation over coffee has turned into an innovative virtual dairy project involving hundreds of farmers across Australia and New Zealand.
The High Performance Herd Project was initiated by Andrew Savage, who works for Tas Herd but previously held roles in agricultural sales. Mr Savage said farmers are often bombarded with a wide range of products and services available for sale, but working out which ones are the most effective and beneficial can be difficult. The solution was to work with the Lawrence family, using their dairy operation Fermer at Osmaston as a focus farm.
“We decided to get around the table and instead of everyone working in our own silos, we started talking to each other and collaborate and talk to each other on how your product can work together with our product and how we can work together a little bit more,” Mr Savage said.
“It was all about trying to help farmers overcome that overwhelming amount of information they get.”
Through the project, information about a range of products used on the farm is then shared through a number of different online platforms, including social media which, promotes discussion and information sharing. Some of the products and services being used on the farm as part of the project include electronic identification collars on the cows for heat detection and health traits, genomics testing, sexed semen, liveweight scales, milk meters and herd testing.
There are now about 800 farmers and industry services providers who are part of the High Performance Herd Project Facebook group.
Funding for the project is provided by a range of companies and organisations in the form of sponsorship. The project has almost completed its first season and Mr Savage said it will most likely continue next season as well.
“This season was probably all around gathering as much data as we can and next season will be more about looking at the data and trends and how that effects things on farm so things like does heat have an impact on rumination and things like that,” he said.
Mr Savage said sharing the warts-and-all information and data from the farm helped generate discussion. “The idea was that this would be a virtual project, so we’ve tried to avoid any on-farm discussion groups,” he said. “By using things like social media, it means we can reach so many more people as well.” Information is also shared through regular podcasts, which are posted on Instagram and are also available as a video on YouTube.
“When we post things on Facebook about what we’re doing on the farm it generates a lot of questions from other farmers and discussion about how different people are doing things, which has been really good,” he said. “It certainly seems to create a lot of discussion, which probably wouldn’t happen otherwise.”
Fermer is a family operation is run by Ken Lawrence and partner Jill together with the next generation Henry, Meg, Fergus, Sam and Gemma. The farm is running a milking herd of 850 cows this year, made up of predominantly Jerseys. The cows are split into two herds and both are spring calving. Average production across the herd is 505kg of milk solids a year and average live weight of the cows is about 480kg.
The farm has a milking area of around 232ha, with about 90 per cent irrigated. They also have two runoff farms nearby, which are used to rear dairy youngstock, winter the cows and produce conserved fodder.
Several years ago the family decided to shift towards a biological management system, after seeing some pasture and animal health issues stemming from high nitrate levels. Since then they have completely overhauled their pasture management and now use biological fertilisers such as composts and liquid teas.
Henry said they use a very small amount of synthetic fertiliser in spring, with 35-45kg of granular urea fertiliser, which is put on as a liquid. As a result, they are now seeing much healthier pastures, with more legume content and a deeper soil profile.
“Everything is unlocking each other sort of thing, so we’re slowly putting less and less on,” Henry said. “The pasture production is better than ever and it just keeps improving.”
While there have been a few challenges along the way through the transition process, Meg said they are now seeing much better cow health and consistent pasture production. The family measure pasture growth once a week with a plate meter and also use satellite-based tools to get an overall gauge of pasture growth rates. Henry said by using different products and services in a commercial operation, they can shamuch healthier pastures, with more legume content and a deeper soil profile.
“Everything is unlocking each other sort of thing, so we’re slowly putting less and less on,” Henry said. “The pasture production is better than ever and it just keeps improving.”
While there have been a few challenges along the way through the transition process, Meg said they are now seeing much better cow health and consistent pasture production. The family measure pasture growth once a week with a plate meter and also use satellite-based tools to get an overall gauge of pasture growth rates.
Henry said by using different products and services in a commercial operation, they can share what does and does not work. Henry and Meg said they are enjoying being part of the project, which had produced some interesting results so far.
“It’s been good getting all the extra bits of data and stuff to back up what we see on farm,” Meg said. Mr Savage said being able to get information out to grass roots farmers in a way that is easy to understand and digest is also important. He said there had also been valuable discussions as part of the project about what can go wrong with technology through human error and other situations, which can be very helpful to for other farmers.
To find out more go to the Facebook group go to High Performance Herd Project and ask to join or look up High Performance Herd Project on Instagram or YouTube.