On June 5, a beautiful second cut of grass from 2023 was chopped on the mixed dairy and arable farm of the Lemans family in Voerendaal (Limburg). Together with the first cut, this results in a full trench silo and a good start to the 2023 grass year.
Although it is now getting quite dry and hot, the entrepreneur is not too concerned about the grassland yet. "In the end, we have about the same yield almost every year," explains Maurice. "Last year the growth was completely gone after the second cut, but we were able to harvest two nice cuts of grass again in September and October. Now the growth is still there, and irrigation is not an option, so we'll see how it goes ."
This year he estimates that 3,5 tons/dm of the first and 4 of the second cut came per hectare. In the Fresh Grass Stand we see that the quality has also been very nice. On Maurice's plot, a fresh grass sample was analyzed weekly with the LG lab.
Grass with alfalfa
The first trench silo is full of high-quality grass. In the next silo, Maurice hopes to silage a layer of lucerne with the third cut on top. "But then the cut has to be made, otherwise I will have to pack the lucerne into packs. If it succeeds, the alfalfa for a nice protein supplement in the silage and I don't have to do any extra work."
Feed from your own country
Lemans strives to obtain as much feed as possible from its own land, in order to make the company resilient. In addition to grass and maize, he therefore grows fodder beets, alfalfa and the mixed cultivation field bean-wheat. The grassland lasts an average of five years before being rotated. Maurice has been sowing for years LG Havera 4. "It works very well, both for grazing as we did before and for mowing. It is nice, firm grass that yields well and the quality is always satisfactory."
Maurice Lemans currently feeds his 106 dairy cows a mixed ration of ensiled grass + alfalfa, maize silage, a bit of straw and ground field bean-wheat from his own cultivation. "The cows stay inside and they are doing fine. The soy recently went out because the urea rose."
View an impression of the chopping and ensiling of the second cut of 2023: