Brought to you by Limagrain
Nice constant feed for high milk production
John Vesseur lives and works with his family in Oostburg (Zeeuws-Vlaanderen). The 107 dairy cows of this perfectionist farmer produced 11.735 liters of milk last MPR year, a great achievement about which he himself is modest. “Like many colleagues, we have risen nicely in recent years. If you start milking more liters, roughage with a consistently good quality becomes even more important, and silage maize fits in very well with that.”
Eighteen years ago, John and his wife Mariëlle moved from Tilburg to the spatial polder of Zeeland because of the urban expansion. John focuses on the dairy cattle, while Mariëlle makes an effort for the image of the sector. Through Klasseboeren, part of the Platform Farm Education Netherlands, she receives students on the farm to show them how it works on a farm. She is also actively seeking connections in the region with a new milk tap at the farm.
The company comprises 40 hectares of house plot, on which grass, maize and TUNDRA winter field beans are grown. “In 2019 we did a derogation, but that will remain at one year. I want to allow as few restrictions as possible and the manure is in high demand in this arable area. A local arable farmer grows the maize we need in addition every year.”
Corn ensures consistency in the ration
“My goal is to milk as much as possible in the healthiest way possible. The cow must be well and the ration must be top notch. In itself this is also possible with a lot of grass, but because we also graze, maize ensures the necessary consistency in the ration. Next year we will go to 65-70% maize in the ration. We have already geared the choice of maize variety in 2019 to this. With so much corn you have more than enough starch, so we have LG 7005 a real silage maize variety with a very good cell wall digestibility. I want to have more than 1.000 VEM at the feeding fence, for that the residual plant must also be easily digestible. In addition, sturdiness is very important here, we are dealing with a strong sea breeze. After all, you have to be able to get the corn off the land properly. ”
John makes this choice of variety in consultation with Antoon Verhoeven, roughage specialist at LG in the south-west of the Netherlands. “Antoon is very deep into the matter and that has great added value for me. He really wants to help us further in the field of roughage and can translate his broad knowledge very well into practice.” This thinking has also resulted in the LG MaisService, with which Limagrain wants to absorb the loss of Mesurol as well as possible. “Bird damage is definitely a factor here, we really need something to protect the corn. Hopefully the damage will be limited with Starcover and Force 20CS.”
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