ADM Newsletter - October 2023

We are two thirds of the way through spring now and it's good to see pasture growth rates around the country starting to pick up with balance date being a bit later than usual this year. It's really good to hear that mating has started really well for the majority of you.

In the last month we have seen some positive news in the dairy market through the GDT and Fonterra following through to raise the mid-point to 7.25 kg per milk solid.

ADM had a successful October ; it was pleasing to hear an increasing number of farmers confirming there ADM blends are working well and supporting excellent production levels. We have been out and about sponsoring a few Calf Club days. It was great to see so much support for these events in the regions and the positivity around this. It was a pleasure to auction off our Value Max Calf Feed at these events to show our support and also set the lucky calves up for the future. Many of you are busy finalising summer crops and making silage, we encourage you to look at your feed budgets for summer and talk to us early if you are thinking you will need adding concentrate feed, this helps with our planning and enables us to secure supply.

Peter Mourits - General Manager - NZ

Global feed market Snapshot

Following a period of extended firming of PKE pricing we saw a little weakening in prices in mid-October as buyers globally stayed away from the market and crushers became a little concerned around inventory levels for November. This enable us to offer the market some better value PKE and it was pleasing to see a number of you take this up. Late in the month we have seen European buyers back in the market looking to secure their winter requirements and this has led to the market stabilizing and moving up a little. Protein product pricing has been firm and in particular Soybean meal, production run rates in the USA have not been good and many plants are running behind their pipeline commitments. Although GDDG production levels have been good the firmer SBM pricing and the challenges with the low Mississippi river water levels is leading to poor US Golf logistics and higher cost to get product to port. Brazilian GDDG are largely sold up for Nov / Dec /Jan and so expectation is we will not see any significant softening the mid - protein markets in the near term.

Please contact your local Territory Manager for competitive contract rates.

Balance Your Ration For Optimum Summer Milk Production – Natalie Chrystal, Nutritionist

Complete Feed Solutions

After the last three years of La Niña, forecast hot and dry El Niño conditions this summer will make managing summer pasture availability and quality particularly challenging for many New Zealand farmers. By now, decisions around what summer crops will be grown have been made and most crops are in the ground; it’s a good time to talk to your feed supplier and review your summer ration.

Supplementary feeding (with home-grown or brought in forages or with concentrate feeds such as PKE, DDGS, grain or pellets) over the summer months helps to extend milk production while still ensuring cows maintain or start to gain condition so that they achieve a condition score of 5 by the time they calve in spring. Including concentrate feeds as part of your cows’ diet can also help to better balance nutrient supply and optimize nutrient utilization.

As far back as 1840, a German botanist described what is now commonly referred to as Liebig’s law of the minimum (Figure 1). Initially developed to explain the nutrient requirements of plants, this principle applies equally to animal nutrition. Simply, growth or production is determined not by the total amount of nutrients available, but by the scarcest, or first limiting, nutrient.

Thus, over the summer period when a variety of different feeds maybe included in diet of dairy cows, it is important to consider the supply of nutrients relative to requirements. Your concentrate supplements can then be selected to help meet any notable deficiencies. For example, diets which contain a high proportion of maize silage may be low in protein. Including a high protein concentrate, like maize DDGS or soyabean meal, can help to overcome this deficiency and support increased milk production. In contrast, if chicory, typically high in protein, is part of the summer ration a lower protein, higher starch feed may be a more cost-effective supplement.

Another important consideration during the summer months is that pasture, silage and many forage crops are higher in fibre than good quality spring pasture. Fibre content is commonly reported as NDF (neutral detergent fibre) which is a measure of the cell walls, consisting of poorly digestible cellulose and indigestible lignin. As the amount of NDF present in a forage increase, the amount the animal can consume decreases – these slowly digested particles take longer to digest and require more rumination to break down into small enough pieces to leave the rumen. At the same time as the NDF content of a forage increases, the energy content of that feed decreases, and these high fibre forages also require more energy to digest. Including a low fibre concentrate type supplement in a summer ration can help to support greater total daily feed and energy intake, thus helping to ensure cows are able to meet their daily nutrient requirements.

Concentrate type supplements, whether fed on a feed-pad or in-shed, are also an easy way to supplement minerals. For example, a diet high in maize silage should be supplemented with added lime, magnesium oxide and salt, and including these in your concentrate supplement is an easy way to ensure regular daily intake. For those farmers in areas where facial eczema is a risk, including zinc oxide in concentrate supplements helps ensure cows are protected, with the added benefit of not having to worry about the negative effect of zinc sulphate water treatments on water intake, during the hot summer months when water intake is particularly important.

Now is a good time to have a chat with your feed supplier and investigate the opportunities you have available to balance your summer ration and maximise return from home grown feeds.

Figure 1: The commonly used barrel metaphor is often used to explain Liebig’s Law of the Minimum. The shorter the stave, the more deficient a specific resource or nutrient. Thus, the shortest stave limits our ability to fill the barrel (or when working with dairy cow rations for a cow to produce to her genetic potential)