Spring milk flows were down about 2% to 3% midway into this month compared with a year ago with farmers maintaining their herds’ energy needs by feeding grass silage, palm kernel extract, grains, cereals and maize silage.
Now the corner seems to have been turned with grass rates going from low to mid-30kg of dry matter per hectare a day at the start of October to between mid-70kg/ha to 80kg/ha per day.
Federated Farmers Dairy South Canterbury chairman Jimmy Emmett said a record amount of supplementary feed had gone out to keep cows fed.
"The danger is the cows don’t peak and then they don’t cycle and then they have poor mating and everyone’s back.
"So I think a lot of people have been proactive, and the payout has probably helped as well, but that has a down side as well on cost and the environmental side of things.
"Personally I’ve never fed this amount of supplementary feed at this time of the season."
Farmers would normally be looking at shutting down paddocks for silage making or regrassing, but they had instead been buying in baleage at an extra cost.
Now that grass growth had returned to meeting the needed feed intake, farmers hoped they could start replenishing depleted silage stacks and regrassing, he said.
"A few people probably rode the line of progression into silliness by regrassing early, but they are probably looking like geniuses now."
Farmers were redrilling new grass now and were buoyed by good body condition scores considering the slow start as they near peak milk production.
A challenging spring could be traced earlier, Mr Emmett said.
"If we go right back to the beginning we had rain pretty much from May to June and someone told me we had our annual rainfall in August so a horrifically wet winter.
"July was dry, but what had happened with all the rain was a lot of nutrients had washed away which took away a lot of residual nitrogen that made grass growth in spring really slow."
Early spring conditions had been cold and windy which had taken the edge off grass growth.
"Grass growth is only really starting to go now so a lot of people are probably finding production [for mid-October] is back 2% to 3% on this time last season."
Most farmers were unlikely to try to make up for the lost milk by adjusting milking regimes. This was more likely to happen if there was a hot and dry summer.
"We are farming for next season and not just this season so it’s about setting the animals up properly.
"The key driver will be keeping animals well fed going into mating so we have strong mating results so next year’s production is strong as well."
Farmers had found this had been a good season for growing calves and young stock had done well, he said.
Mr Emmett is a contract milker just out of Geraldine on two farms for the Pye Group, wintering 1700 cows and raises 670 calves for herd replacements and 100 beef calves for themselves.
Milk powder to feed the calves had been scarce this season based on the beef price calves were making with retailers struggling to support back orders.
Many dairy farmers had turned to reducing non-replacement calves by rearing animals which had a "purposeful end" such as dairy beef Changus — Charolais Angus cross — calves.
Hereford and wagyu bloodlines were also being used in the plan to reduce bobby calf numbers.
Mr Emmett said farmers virtually needed another payout of about $10 a kilogram of milksolids with Dairy NZ’s break even point at $8.80/kg after costs are covered.
"As soon as the dairy payout goes up everything else seems to get another zero added to it."
Many farmers were concentrating on repaying debt after the high payout and investing in some capital infrastructure projects and development.
This was likely a smart move in the event a downturn arrived.
The amount of development might depend on the result of Fonterra’s $4.2 billion sale of consumer brands to Lactalis and how much of a cash injection goes back to farmer shareholders.
