Getting bulk from brassicas
The arrival of spring heralds warmer weather, lambs frolicking in the paddocks and longer days and with the busiest times on farm nearly behind us, farmers are looking ahead to what crops to grow.
Winter has come to a close, but gates to winter feed paddocks are slowly but surely swinging open as farmers start planning their winter feed crops for the year ahead. It’s common knowledge that every region in the country has a different climate, which means every farm has different soil types, a different farming system and different outcomes to achieve. A mixture of winter crops spread across these different regions and for many farmers, yield is king.
All signs point to brassicas for a high yielding crop, particularly swede, kale or fodder beet, Wayne Nichol, national technical manager and agronomist at PGG Wrightson Seeds says.
Brassicas are high in protein and packed with nutrients, providing high quality feed to increase growth rates and the number of stock finished per hectare. The crop also provides a break from pasture and helps to eliminate pests and weeds.
With the right fertiliser, brassicas can help correct soil fertility issues and support a cleaner, higher producing pasture.
To get the right nutritional balance, Nichol says a crop cannot stand alone. A pasture or silage should supplement both leafy and non-leafy bulb brassicas.
“All brassica options will require careful feed management during the transition phase and at all times will need a fibre source of supplement feed to them.”
Prolonged drought has affected some farmers across the country, which has left pasture in scarce amounts. Nichol says that crops such as fodder beet and forage cereals can be substituted in, but the key factor to consider is choosing the appropriate crop and cultivar to meet animal demand and specific stock class.
At the end of winter, Te Waipounamu especially felt the cold as frost and snow swept across the lower half of the country. While most of these areas were too high in altitude to be growing winter feed, other farms had the comfort of their more resilient crops.
“Kale would be the most common one, followed by swedes, fodder beet and probably turnips to a lesser extent. The fodder beet doesn’t tend to go to altitude ... It tends to be lower country that the fodder beet would be on,” Nichol says.
What crop you plant, where you plant it and what you supplement it with has a lasting impact on the environment and soils surrounding your crop. Nichol stresses the importance of wintering rules and obligations required by your local regional council and catchment groups.
“You’ve got to give consideration to the soil type you’re on. If you’re on heavy soils and you’re growing great big crops or ones that are waterlogged, you’re going to make a mess regardless … Just because you can grow a high yielding crop, doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing to do.”
Critical source areas should be steered clear of, to avoid run off of nitrate, phosphorus, faecal matter and sediment. These areas consist of gullies in a paddock where overland flow meet to form small channels of running water which may flow into streams and rivers.
Funds are currently stretched for farmers, and Nichol is aware many will want to cut costs and watch their expenditure. He says that before doing so, it’s best to get advice and not to cut corners, as a reduction in inputs can impact expected outcomes.
For sheep and cropping farmer and South Canterbury Federated Farmers arable chairperson Graham Talbot, kale is his most trusted crop to finish his lambs on and feed his ewes during winter. Through crop rotation, he’s able to efficiently balance his soils to get the best nutrients into his crops.
Come early January, Talbot plans to harvest his barley paddocks, spray them off and plant kale for his winter lambs. While it doesn't have a high yield, it works well for his rotation as it reduces weed resistance to herbicides and has a high nutritional value.
Resistance to the winter elements also puts kale in a favourable light for Talbot, especially in the wet. “It stands up tall. So if you get turnips and some of those bulb crops like swedes, if it gets really wet, all of the feed is in the mud. If you’re break feeding kale, it stands out and it’s out of the mud.”
Talbot has found more ways to utilise his winter feed crops outside of winter by finishing his lambs on the kale he planted in January. “Instead of saying ‘It’s a winter feed and only a winter feed’, we’re fattening our lambs and sprinkling them around those paddocks … It helps finish those lambs and generally it doesn’t do too much damage to the actual winter crop.
“It works because it’s worm-free feed and high protein and there’s only 25 lambs to the hectare so it’s stocked really low. If they can nibble a bit of grass, nibble a few weeds around the edge and nibble a bit of sweet kale, they fatten really good on it.”
As for the cropping side of things, planting a brassica like kale prepares his soils for wheat, while also enhancing the balance of his soil nutrients and biology.
“For that old grass paddock that’s had a couple of crops out of it, it’s got rid of the old brown toppy turf and all of those horrible grass weeds so I’ve got good feed for the spring. It helps with weed control and establishing a good paddock again.”
While kale works well for Talbot on his South Canterbury, clay-based rolling downs, he says that farming systems come in many shapes and sizes, so what works for him, may not work for any other Tom, Dick or Harry down the road.