Northland Dairy Development Trust - NDDT

11/06/2026

Extended Lactation Trial Update 11 June 2026

Welcome to the first update for our new Extended Lactation Trial, which began on 1 June. We have our usual Baseline herd which is spring calving and twice-a-day milking for most of the year. Our two other farms will be milking all year round with half of the herd calving each year. Cows will milk for 2 seasons each, with one of the farms on TAD, and one on OAD all year. We will measure our usual factors, including production, profit and impact on people and environment.

Current management is as follows:
• Our mobs are all settled into their new trial groups including heifers. It has been interesting watching their behaviour over Halter and tracking their gradual integration amongst the cows.
• All dry cows are well on track to reach BCS targets at calving on 10th July and supplement use will drop accordingly.
• Milk production is higher than expected, with OAD cows only dropping around 15% when moved onto OAD. These cows have all been milking since last spring.
• We have been following the herds with N at 70kg/ha Sustain since 1 June, avoiding wetter days and paddock areas. We have kept 6 paddocks as no-N pdks (2 per farm) and will report growth rates with and without N through the season.
• Blood tests and cull livers have been checked and mineral levels were good. We have started Mg going onto supplement and through the Dosatron in preparation for spring.

03/06/2026

Our Fulkerson kikuyu seedlings are up and competing against Poa for space. Come to our Field Day on Wed 17th June to have a look at our imported kikuyu cultivar. The Fulkerson variety is reported to be 25% more productive with higher quality and winter growth.

29/05/2026

Future Farm Systems Final Update 29 May 2026

CURRENT MANAGEMENT
• We have had no rain to speak of at Dargaville for three weeks. This has been a welcome break after a wet March/April, great for pasture utilisation but it has slowed pasture growth down. A wee bit of warm rain would help get the recent nitrogen applications activated.
• We're pleased with our record milk production this season, for all three farms. The wet summer/early autumn (along with high clover content and kikuyu mulching) helped keep cows milking well and culls did not go until last week. Cows averaged 1.4 kg MS/day on all three farms over March and April.
• Our ‘Future Dairy Farm Systems’ project is coming to an end. We have a lot of insights from the last five years. We will present our final results at our upcoming field day at NARF on 17th June and discuss our new project.
• Our Extended Lactation farm systems project starts next week, which compares our Baseline farm with 24-month lactation systems under either twice-a-day milking or once-a-day milking regimes.
• We have installed ‘Halter’ to help with our farm systems trial management and data collection.

25/05/2026

17/05/2026

Happy to have our babies back home and looking fabulous. Average weight was 486kg with 40% of them over 500kg! That is heavier than our cows. Only a few slightly behind target, and all of them very quiet thanks to our grazier.

02/05/2026

Future Farm Systems Update 1 May 2026

CURRENT MANAGEMENT
• Nice to have some fine weather but our pasture wedges are dropping off with some cooler days.
• Baseline and Alternative Pastures herds are drying off in the next week. The Low Emissions herd will dry off the following week. Culls are booked in and R2yr heifers came home today.
• There is a lot going on with setting up for our new trial. We will be milking around 80 cows through the winter for our Extended Lactation Trial.
• All new grass paddocks have now been sprayed for broadleaf weeds. We used the drone to reduce soil damage as paddocks were still soft. Our new kikuyu plants are up and competing with Poa Annua.

23/04/2026

Big thanks to Wayne Robinson at Terra Drones for spraying our new grass paddocks. They are too soft to drive on so this did the trick!

16/04/2026

Future Farm Systems Trial Update 16 April 2026

CURRENT MANAGEMENT
• More warm rain has boosted pasture growth and covers again but soil is very wet for this time of year.
• We are still milking all cows, with no culling expected until final dry off in May. Full stock numbers are needed to keep on top of pasture growth and quality, especially our paspalum and kikuyu pastures.
• All kikuyu paddocks have now been mulched. The first ones to be done (30 days ago) are now over 3000kgDM/ha with high quality leaf to the base and plenty of clover. Cows will milk well on these and it is important we graze them down to good residuals.
• We are strategically using supplement to keep our carryover cows milking well for our new Extended Lactation trial. These cows will be allocated into their new milking mobs when in-calf cows are dried off in May.

03/04/2026

Future Farm Systems Update 2 April 2026

CURRENT MANAGEMENT
• Rain last week has boosted pasture growth, however pasture covers have not lifted due to mulching kikuyu.
• All kikuyu paddocks are being mulched and under-sown with Italian ryegrass as they are grazed. We are now around halfway through and should be completed before the end of April.
• We will slow down the round to >40 days to stretch out the remaining un-mulched paddocks and allow time for the mulched paddocks to recover before we need them. This will require more supplement for the next couple of weeks.
• Cows continue to milk pretty well, no talk yet about taking culls out or drying any off.

19/03/2026

Future Farm Systems Update 19 March 2026

CURRENT MANAGEMENT
• Pasture growth is variable but pasture covers are holding with the supplement we are feeding. All herds are now getting baleage and PKE.
• We have sown 1ha in a new kikuyu variety imported from Australia. We will be closely monitoring the establishment and performance of this paddock separately from the current trial.
• Turnip paddocks have been sown into either perennial ryegrass/clover, or tall-fescue/clover. We have used a mix of Tower and Nouga fescue cultivars, with some test strips of pure Nouga, Haven, Tower and Quantica in one paddock for comparison.
• Mulching and under-sowing Italian ryegrass has also begun into all kikuyu based pastures (behind the cows). We will spread this programme over the next 45 days, aiming to finish early May.
• Facial eczema spores are still around, so we continue to dose with zinc at full rates.