SPECIAL REPORT
Efficiency from amazing maize Waikato dairy farmer Paul MacKenzie is growing 43% of his milking platform in maize. Maize silage is an ideal component for his highly stocked winter milking system, but he told Sheryl Haitana there is always more efficiency to be found. Photos by Emma MaCarthy.
W
hen Paul MacKenzie got the opportunity to purchase 47ha of land next door to his sharemilking job at Waharoa, he jumped at the opportunity. He initially incorporated the land into the sharemilking operation, but when the sharemilking job finished he was left with 47ha and not so many options. After visiting a few different operations he decided he wanted to build a 50-bail rotary and two Herd Homes and milk intensively on the 47ha with the possibility of a 39ha lease block next door. Surprisingly, the bank manager agreed. It was a relief to later be able to purchase the lease block during their five year lease period, otherwise he would have been left with that capital infrastructure and milking a lot of cows on 47ha. Moving to a high input intensive system wasn’t always on the cards for Paul, but he quickly saw the benefit of feeding 62
cows to their fullest potential. Within two years, production lifted from 340-400kg MS/cow to 500kg MS/cow. “I couldn’t believe how quickly we got there.” The cows are now producing north of 600kg MS/cow with a diet of 40% pasture, 25% maize and the other 35% made up of complementary feeds including straw, palm kernel, brewers grain and molasses, distiller’s dried grains (DDG), soya or other sources of protein. “Maize is a great balancer to the volatile variability of grass. We feed it every day; it’s easy to grow, easy to store, it’s very economical and it is a consistent feed. “Because we could grow maize cheap and a lot of it, we were able to put more maize into the diet and overall create a more cost-efficient higher quality diet. “It was basically working out the maximum we could put in the diet to ensure Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | August 2021
