Lincoln University

Lincoln University Dairy Farm (LUDF) is refocussing its strategy and making changes to several of its farm practices this season including the 10-in-seven milking regime, establishing and using plantain and its replacement rate policy.

In this episode, Anne Lee catches up with Antoinette Archer from the South Island Dairying Development Centre (SIDDC) and LUDF manager Peter Hancox to review the changes and why they’ve been made. The farm will move to using flexible milking as a tactical tool in the shoulders of the season with the aim to boost milk production through a return to twice-a-day milking during the majority of the season. The farm has also moved away from using plantain as a pure sward and will aim for 10-20% in pastures to get some benefit from nitrate leaching reductions while improving ease of management. Overall the farm is aiming to make a 1% productivity gain year on year, be amongst the top 10% in terms of profitability and emissions efficiency and top 5% for lowest nitrogen leaching losses.

In the first episode of The Dairy Exporter Podcast, Editor Sheryl Haitana & Deputy Editor Anne Lee delve into the study at Lincoln University’s Ashley Dene Research and Development Station that looks at a suckling calf rearing system, where cows and calves are kept together until weaning.

Welsh-born Kirsty Thomas encourages fellow ‘townies’ to make the move to farming. By Anne Lee.