Autumn cut grass shows various results

A large proportion of dairy farmers are rapidly bringing home an autumn cut. In many places, the land is slowly drying up, giving livestock farmers the opportunity to mow cleanly. This is also the case with our participants in the Boerenbusiness Roughage tour, where the first results of the autumn cut are already in.

Last Wednesday 5 October is at Jan Henk Waterink from Breezerveld (Overijssel) mowed the fourth section of the land. A decent cut, with some old grass still present. As a result, Waterink expects that the number of VEMs will be disappointing. He does suspect that there is enough protein in the cut. The 35 hectares of land are shaken once after mowing and are chopped into the pit together with the Pioneer additive. With this, Waterink hopes to prevent butyric acid in the silage. A nice cut that has been slightly sprinkled. "I'd rather have a little too little rain that I can still irrigate myself than too much rain that I can't get off the land again." Waterink has not had much rain in the last three weeks. Only 25 mm, but he is certainly not dissatisfied with this. This made it easy to get the edge off the land without doing too much damage. However, Waterink is disappointed with the grub that can be found in some heads of the plots. "I've never been bothered by this, but because of the warm weather I have to believe it."

Promising last cut in Limburg
40 hectares of grassland were also mowed at Silvain Kusters from Guttecoven (Limburg) on ​​Wednesday. "The amount per plot varies greatly, but I expect a decent yield". It is therefore a bit wetter here and there and the grass is shaken twice instead of once. Of the 40 hectares, Kusters has about 10 hectares of clover, from which he generally expects a slightly higher yield. "I think the nitrogen has done its job. It is not a bad cut of quality." Kusters does indicate that the cut is somewhat sticky. This is also reflected in the grass sample from which a sugar of 149 (in clover) and 180 came out. Kuster certainly does not give up on the protein levels. With 194 (on clover) and 167, this cut looks very promising. All in all, Kusters suspects that approximately 2.000 kilos of dry matter will be removed from the hectares. He is certainly pleased with this. "They should be able to give milk from that"

Robert Welhouse from Wapse (Drenthe) has chosen to mow last Monday. Only four hectares, as the rest is used for stable feeding. "A good week ago the cows did not like to eat this hectare because of too many dead pieces of grass". As a result, Welhuis chose to pack these parcels into bales and thus removed 21 bales from the land. Nevertheless, the grass sample showed a protein content of 165 and a sugar content of 171. An excellent result, in the grass sample from the stable feed grass the protein content came out at 171 and the sugar at 145. So slightly lower than the grass that is in bales. Whether the grass is actually better cannot, of course, be fully stated 100%, because only a sample was taken. Of course Welhuis will continue with barn feeding to get the most return from the grass for his cows. In addition, he has also received the result of the yield of his summer field beans with 6.250 kilos per hectare, he is certainly pleased with this. Some costs were incurred with the irrigation of the summer field beans, but that has certainly had its value. Welhuis plans to grow the beans again next year if the price of the crop is good and he can find suitable soil. Otherwise, Welhuis may outsource the cultivation of the field beans to an arable farmer.

Summer field beans from Welhuis in Wapse (Drenthe) Summer field beans together with corn flakes at Welhuis Raking mowed grass at Silvain Kusters in Guttecoven (Limburg)

Protein deficiency for various reasons
With Roel Assies from Zeewolde (Flevoland) and Joost van Nostrum from Sint-Oedenrode (Brabant) the results of the autumn cut are in. The protein content was disappointing with only 96 and 133. Both dairy farmers had hoped for a little more. Assies thinks this is mainly due to the dry period. According to him, the nitrogen was not released. The mown plot was deliberately not fertilized to give the clover a little more chance. This was clearly visible in the plot with a red glow over it. However, it was less visible in the results of the grass sample. The yield was not disappointing, as was the sugar percentage of 173. Van Nostrum thinks that the shortage of protein is precisely due to the heavy irrigation of the plot, so that all nitrogen has already been used before. After the previous cut, this plot has had no more fertilizer. Van Nostrum has no clover in this plot, which should have given a different picture. But if you look at the results of both grass samples, they don't differ much from each other. Both cuts have a high VEM content and high sugar content.

The full results can be read in the table fresh grass samples.

Manon van der Meer

m.more@boerenbusiness. Nl

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