Jon Doran
U.S. Range & Pasture
Product Manager
Dow AgroSciences
Ruminations
What business
are you in?
“We’re producing food here.”
– Guy Parrish, Southpoint Dairy
Intensive forage management helps keep feed costs in line for Southpoint Dairy.
You regular readers of Range &
Pasture Steward may see a dairy story
as unusual for our pages.
Content here typically deals with
forage for beef cattle. Most of our
customers are in the beef cattle
business.
But we do have dairy customers,
and we were fascinated to learn about
Southpoint Dairy, near Chiefland, Fla.
And for something a little different, we
thought you might be, too.
We found the story interesting on a
number of points:
• A grass-based dairy has to manage
forage like the crop it is.
• Even where they still carry some feed
to the cattle, they had to balance
cow size, resources and production
capability.
• Southpoint employees know they’re
in the food business.
I believe that last point is increasingly
common across agriculture, but it
bears thinking about. We tend to define
what we do as beef, dairy or corn (or
herbicides). You make us Range &
Pasture peddlers proud when you say
you’re in the grass business.
Agriculture cares for the most
important physical assets of mankind
— topsoil, water and vegetation — and
produces food and fiber to sustain us
all. Short of saving souls, is there a
more important business?
Grass-based dairy
fine-tunes forage.
B
eef cow managers aren’t the only ones
who’ve figured out that harvesting forage
the average for conventional dairies and
about half the production of maximum
producers in the industry.
and carrying it to a cow is an increasingly
expensive exercise.
Pasture advantage
So have many dairy producers.
The advantage for pasture-based
Such thinking has led to a minitrend
dairies
is in cost of production. Grazing
of dairies that eschew the conventional
plays
a
big role in that. The weekly goal is
confinement model and now let the cow
to
keep
feed costs less than 50 percent of
harvest at least some of her forage herself.
income.
That’s the strategy at
At the milking barn,
Southpoint Dairy, Chiefland,
Southpoint
cows get a total
Fla., one of three pasturemixed
ration
of corn, soybean
based Grade A dairies owned
meal
and
citrus.
Cottonseed
by Alliance Grazing Group,
hulls
add
roughage.
Parrish
headquartered in Trenton, Fla.
balances
feed
and
grazed
forage
If you’re accustomed to
to
maximize
milk
yield
for
the
a conventional dairy, you’ll
cows’
stage
of
lactation.
notice a lot of tweaks in
Early in their lactation,
this system, says Southpoint
Guy
Parrish
cows
get more grain. Later, as
manager Guy Parrish.
their
production
naturally declines, they
First, the cows look different.
rely
more
on
forage.
“We use crossbred Jersey-Holsteins
“At the peak, we’ll feed 32 pounds
that are a little smaller,” Parrish says.
with
20 percent roughage, and the cows
“They’re about 1,100 pounds versus the
get
20
pounds of dry matter from the
1,600-pound Holsteins in a conventional
grass,”
Parrish says. “The grass is about
dairy.”
80
percent
moisture, so that’s 100
Twice per day, Southpoint employees
pounds
as-fed.”
milk 1,400 of these creatures in a 60His challenge is to keep cows’ dry
cow parlor. Annual production per cow
matter
intake consistent.
averages between 14,000 and 15,000
“If
you
cut back grain, they have to
pounds of milk. That’s about 75 percent of
Label precautions apply to forage treated with GrazonNext or GrazonNext HL and to manure from animals that have
consumed treated forage within the last three days. Consult the label for full details.
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On the cover: Cleveland Land & Cattle Co., LLC,
Prattville, Ala.
®
Trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC
GrazonNext and GrazonNext HL are not registered for sale or use in all states. Contact your state pesticide regulatory agency
to determine if a product is registered for sale or use in your state.
Always read and follow label directions.
get three or four more pounds of forage
from pasture. Cows don’t like to do that,”
he says. “They act like they’re starving,
and they’re just mad for a while. But they
figure it out.”
Green forage
Parrish figures the grass into the cows’
diet at 15 percent protein. Southpoint
cows are always grazing green forage.
For most of the year, that grazing
comes from bermudagrass and
bahiagrass pasture. For winter grazing,
Parrish interseeds oats and ryegrass.
Electric fencing divides pastures into
paddocks. All paddocks are under center
pivot irrigation.
“We’ll have some 60-day periods
without rain,” Parrish says. “But
those pivots aren’t just for forage crop
production. They’re our barns. They’re
our cooling system for the cows.”
At night, starting about 8 p.m., the
system rotates and waters paddocks. By
7 a.m., it’s back in the paddock where the
cows are grazing. Between milkings, the
cows graze and laze under the mist.
Every day, the cows move to a new
paddock among the 13 in the circle.
Southpoint stocks about four cows per
acre. It’s intensive grazing.
Following soil samples, Parrish applies
liquid nitrogen through the center pivots.
“We usually apply
15 pounds of N
every 30 days, but
70 percent of the
total N needed
comes from the
cows,” he says.
Weed control
Along with
fertilization, weed
control is a must.
Weeds present
several problems for
a grass-based dairy.
“Weeds hinder
grazing,” Parrish says. “They cause
problems with udders so more cows
come up with mastitis and more cows get
pinkeye. And weeds compete for fertilizer
and water.”
Some weeds, like swine cress, create
off-flavors in the milk.
In 2010, Parrish switched his weed
control program to GrazonNext®
herbicide on the recommendation of his
supplier, Helena Chemical, in Alachua,
Fla. Parrish called location manager Ross
Woodward to learn if there was herbicide
he could use on pasture grazed by lactating
dairy cows. Woodward noted GrazonNext
fit the bill.
“We can spray whole pastures with
Smaller, Jersey-Holstein cross cows work best in
Southpoint Dairy’s grass-based operation.
GrazonNext because there’s no milk
withdrawal,” Parrish says. “Otherwise,
we’d have to time it just right, and if
someone opens the wrong gate or cows get
out, we’ve really messed up. It’s a planning
nightmare otherwise.”
Producing food
Parrish sprays pastures where swine
cress is a problem in late February or early
March. Where pigweed and nightshade
are the targets, he sprays in May. For
all targets, he’s used GrazonNext at
the labeled rate of 2 pints per acre.
(Equivalent rate of new GrazonNext HL
herbicide is 1.5 pints per acre.)
“We can’t get rid of weeds
entirely, probably because weed
seed comes in every load of
feed,” he says. “But we can
control them.”
GrazonNext® herbicide
controls all the target weeds and
fits into his overall management
of pastures, Parrish says. It helps
keep the grass growing and, in
that way, even contributes to
milk quality.
“The worst enemy for
bermudagrass is shade. In shade,
bermudagrass will die out. If you
keep the weeds controlled and
grass growing, cows aren’t
waddling in the mud,” he says.
“Grass keeps udders clean and
that’s important. We’re
producing food here.”
Center pivot irrigation not only waters Southpoint pastures but also serves as the daytime cooling system for the cows.
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