Warm weather brings growth 

Dairy researcher Dexcel is advising farmers to take advantage of extra grass growth brought on by the unseasonal warm weather this month. 

Dexcel's Chris Glassey says typical Waikato farms are producing up to 60 kilos of dry matter per day per hectare - three times the rate of this time last year.

Milk production in the South Island is up by a quarter on last year's rate. Usually this time of the year cows are eating the grass faster than it can grow. 

Glassey says rather than feeding out their supplies of hay and silage, farmers ought to concentrate on getting their stock to eat the extra grass, or even be making silage out of it soon, so as to maintain pasture quality for as long as possible through the spring. 

But he says there is a downside.  The extra growth may deplete nitrogen supplies in soil, that will need topping up later.

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