Friday March 7, 2014

Day 57..

Wellies on and ready for a walk about the farm...

Today Charlotte had devised a field map and instructions about what she wanted us to find in a number of fields across the Brackenhurst campus gathering information such as; field name, crop type, weed identification, soil and field characteristics. We gathered samples of the crop and any weeds and used a weed identification book to establish what each weed was. The most common issue in all the fields we visited was water logging - simply due to the amount of recent rainfall. It was also visible the difference in poor quality soil and nutrient rich soil where some crop plants were yellow in colour and not as well established as better off crops that were green in colour and well rooted. This was a good introduction to field walking and getting used to looking at the plant and other plant species that could affect growing conditions and ultimately the final yield!

In grassland we looked at the different ways to feed conserved forage to livestock including ring feeders, trough fed, floor or loose feeding. The way you feed usually depends on a number of factors such as housing, efficiency, animal, location and aim. We focused on feeding cows a Total Mix Ration - TMR, which is the method of feeding the cow all it needs in one feedstuff. It is made up of a mixture of forage and concentrates to make a complete diet that will be fully utilised by the animal; by means of a constant and balanced supply of feed that has been formulated to a specific nutrient concentration with the added benefit of forage - which helps keeps the rumen in good working order making the digestion of food easy. There are disadvantages to TMR such as the expense of the machinery that mixes and distributes the feed and the fact that individual feeding is not easy unless you divide by different feeding groups and plan groups for optimum performance!