Southland dairy farmers Steven and Hayley Clarke target producing as much top-quality home-grown pasture as possible and utilise it, to increase profit and reduce emissions.
Mr Clarke said they and their two full-time staff harvest 13 tonnes of pasture per hectare, nearly two tonnes more than the national benchmark.
As a result, they produce more than 1690kg of milksolids per hectare.
Their operating profit per hectare lies in the top 10% of people owning and operating dairy farms in Southland, he said.
The Clarkes bought their dairy farm, Rosebrae, in Brydone, between Mataura and Edendale, about 15 years ago and raised a family of Pippa, 13, Marty, 10, and Jordie, 7.
"We didn’t start with much and it is in my nature to make the most of every situation and that meant doing things properly."
To improve their farm system, they "picked the brains" of top Southland dairy farmers John and Colleen Neustroski, Kevin Hall and agribusiness consultant Ivan Lines.
"They have been a big part of our success."
When they bought Rosebrae, the previous owners were producing 196,000kg of milksolids a season with 500 cows.
Production had been boosted by maximising pasture in the system and measuring and monitoring it regularly.
Measuring the pasture every week made it easier to make decisions on how best to utilise it and look after it, Mr Clarke said.
"When you sit on a tractor until midnight sowing grass seed, you want to look after it."
He sowed plantain seed in pasture in late October last year.
"It worked really well."
About 7% of the milking platform was now plantain and it had potential to reduce nitrogen leaching on Rosebrae.
More than 14 tonnes of dry matter per hectare was grown on Rosebrae last season, much higher than the national average.
Other factors for boosting production in the past 15 years includes investing in good on-farm infrastructure, such as building a new $1.3million milking shed, lanes and effluent pond.
In the shed each day, cows were given 2kg of meal — 15% palm kernel, 20% dried distillers grains and 65% wheat.
During their time on Rosebrae they had learnt to never delay making baleage from any pasture too high for the cows to eat.
"Get it off paddocks as quick as you can and then it is back in the round."
A recent purchase of a 84ha neighbouring farm would allow them to increase the peak milking herd to 550 cows, despite having a consent to milk up to 700 cows.
"I truly believe if we do 550 properly, we can make the same amount of money and it will be more enjoyable and give the team a larger variety of work through the season."
A long-term goal was to increase production to 600kg of milksolids per cow by breeding better cows and extending days in milk.
The new land would be used to run their rising 1-year-old calves and rising 2-year-old heifers, which were away grazing.
He felt renergised after buying the land.
"If you sit still you can get a bit stale."
A potential goal was to build a winter barn on the milking platform.
The barn would allow them to winter 200 of their cows, which they now send away to an external grazier.
All of the cows were artificially inseminated and hefiers were included on October 19.
He selected straws of bull semen with traits to produce a fertile cow with strong udder conformation.
Artificial insemination of cows starts on October 28 this season and calving starts at the end of July.
The breeding programme has a strong focus on introducing genetics to improve breeding worth to get a more efficient herd.
His herd was just in the top 25% for breeding worth in New Zealand, Mr Clarke said.
Another aim of the breeding programme was to remove the low performing cows from the herd.
"There are a lot of oxygen thieves in the herd. There are a few three-titters left and some low producing cows and if I could get rid of 50 or 100 of them, I’d be away laughing."
The herd were dried off in late May, earlier if adverse weather was forecast.
"We will pull the pin. I can’t be bothered wrecking pastures. All you are doing is taking it off the next season, so we are really hot on that."
