Olin Greenan on his production system to match grass grown & coping with the prolonged NZ summer drought

Olin Greenan joins Emma-Louise Coffey for the second part of his interview on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to give further insights into his production system.

Olin first explains what his lactation looks like: calving from early July to mid-September, mating starts in early October with dry off at the end of April.

However, he explains that the 2021/22 lactation proved challenging owing to a prolonged dry spell during the summer hitting in New Zealand at Christmas.

Previously the summer drought lasted for 6 weeks but Olin says that this has increased to 10 weeks in recent years which has prompted him to revisit his feeding strategy.

To counteract drought conditions, he reduces milking frequency to OAD or 3 in 2 as well as supplementing in order to preserve body condition and support milk production into late lactation.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at: 

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com