He also likes the fact he is less reliant on big machinery and can basically shut the gate on the herd until the next milking.
He has moved away from the traditional rye-grass, paspalum and white clover pastures to a 80ha milking platform consisting of a mixture of fescue, plantain, chicory, white clover and 150 rye-grass.
It took a bit of trial and error to get to a point where the cows were content with the pasture mix.
“Initially, I started with a stand of tall fescue about eight years ago, but the cows weren’t that happy, so I started to oversow with 150 rye-grass and then I added in plantain and chicory — white clover has always been present, in fact it’s a bit like a weed out here,” Craig said.
He said consequent stands of the pasture mix have got better and better as he has tweaked the blends.
“The cows still don’t enjoy the original 25ha which was dominated by tall fescue as much as the other areas, but I have found the fescue and chicory thrive in the warmer conditions when the other species back off.”
Craig said an added bonus was the mixed fescue pastures seemed to require less nitrogen input.
When it comes to summer cropping, Craig grows 30ha of a sweet sudan grass sorghum hybrid mix which the cows also enjoy. This is used to replace the 30-40ha which is dried off from Christmas through to March.
The cows have access to at least one full paddock grazing most days of the year.
Craig also crops around 300ha for silage and hay, alternating between cereals and vetch.
“We are self sufficient for silage and just buy in a bit of cereal hay, largely because we take our cereals to grainlige and direct harvest from the top.”
Craig uses the services of an agronomist for the cropping side of his operation.
“I believe in investing in the best knowledge I can so I can continue to get good results under whatever seasonal conditions we are facing at the time.”
He tries not to use any irrigation for the cropping side of the operation.
“We run our cropping largely as a dryland operation, but we can irrigate some of it if we need too, it just makes the fodder more expensive to produce, and we prefer to keep our irrigation for the milking platform.”
Craig and his wife Sharon have their own permanent water shares and lease some off Craig’s mum Judy, together this supplies enough water for all their pasture needs.
To help reduce fertiliser requirements, nutrients are spread on the paddocks from effluent and composted manure from the feed pad.
“We keep it away from the cropping area because it can pick up rocks, which the silage contractor doesn’t like, so we mainly use it on our pasture.
“We still use conventional fertilisers, but we do find a vetch and cereal rotation helps reduce our application as well.”
Historically, lucerne pastures have also been utilised for the milking platform, but currently there is no space in the rotation.
“The high protein and quality of lucerne is a great feed over summer and the cows love to graze it, we will bring in back into the rotation sometime in the future.”
Craig said when it came to his own business, pasture just works.
“We can manage our herd and our labour with just us and one full-time and one part-time worker, and when anyone has time off, we can still get by.
“Labour is one of our most limiting resources and the way we have set up our milking platform we can comfortably get by, which takes the pressure off and allows us to keep enjoying our cows and the industry,” Craig said.
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