Mowing the last cuts, urea shoots up

After a very dry summer, the grass is now green again and still too long to enter the winter. This results in an extra nice cut, let the dairy farmers who Boerenbusiness Roughage tour know how to participate. The cows are also still outside in some places or are being fed in the barn. This results in striking results.

There is plenty of mowing in Zeewolde (Flevoland), Sint-Oedenrode (North Brabant) and Guttecoven (Limburg). The grass turns bright green and is still too long to go into winter like this, reports Roel Assies from Zeewolde. It's not a thick cut, but it's a nice bonus. In Guttecoven at Silvain Kuster Friday 28 October is ideal weather with almost 25 degrees on the temperature gauge and the grass definitely wants to dry. The amount of this fifth cut is certainly no less than the third and still welcome after a bad year. About 32 hectares have been mowed and are being baled. In Strijen (South Holland) at Sander Vijverberg they are mainly busy renewing the turf. The cows are already inside, which means that there is now room for restoring the grazing pasture. The conditions for this are ideal, says Vijverberg. The winter field beans are also currently being sown at Vijverberg. 

Feeding stables at Robert Welhuis from Wapse (Drenthe)

Mowing for stable feeding at Welhuis(Drenthe)

Mowing for stable feeding at Welhuis.

Lawn mowing at Silvain Kusters in Guttecoven (Limburg).

Lawn mowing at Joost van Nostrum in Sint-Oedenrode (North Brabant)

Lawn mowing at Van Nostrum in Sint-Oedenrode.

Re-seeding meadow grass sod at Sander Vijverberg from Strijen (South Holland).

Sowing winter field beans at Sander Vijverberg Strijen (South Holland)

At Robert Welhouse from Wapse (Drenthe), last week's 13 millimeters of precipitation ensured that the protein in the grass is probably a lot higher than normal at this time of year. By feeding this grass in the barn, Welhuis notices that the urea in the milk shoots up considerably to a value of 22. Even though Welhuis already feeds 1,5 kilos of turnip per cow less. He suspects this is due to the moderate amount of precipitation this season. The fact that there is now more precipitation ensures that mineralization gets started better due to the large amount of soil moisture.

Also with Frank Rooker from Aartswoud (North Holland) the urea rose to 22, despite the fact that he also chose to feed 1,2 kilos less soy. He started stable feeding 2,5 weeks ago and started with a urea of ​​15. That quickly increased. A grass sample was taken from the fresh grass in Aartswoud last week. Below are the results. The samples show that they are not much different from each other. Only the protein in Zeewolde is a bit lacking. The cows in Sint-Oedenrode near Joost van Nostrum are still outside. However, he does not see an increase in urea, but does say that the cows' intake is less because they graze in the field. 

Manon van der Meer

m.more@boerenbusiness. Nl

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