Cost Of Concentrates Compared With Crops

Press, Volume C, Issue 29674, 18 November 1961, Page 6

Cost Of Concentrates Compared With Crops

ON some town milk supply farms Mr J. J. F. Hughes, Dairy Board consulting officer of Nelson, believes that there is a place for use of concentrates and on most he considers that there are occasions where they could be used. He told a town milk supply farmers’ field day at Greymouth this week that a farmer in Nelson with a quota of 70 gallons had lost half his farm because it was leasehold but retained his quota and buying in concentrates costing £7OO pro-

duced more milk than before when he had been paying £BOO for the lease. The farmers in Nelson and Marlborough who were making most money were feeding barley meal, said Mr Hughes. Earlier he had produced a set of figures to show that it was almost as cheap to use barley meal as to go through the process of growing supplementary crops and going back to grass. Mr Hughes put the cost of growing a supplementary crop and going back to grass at £37 10s an acre, including £2 10s for the tractor for five hours, 10s for seed for the supplementary crop, £1 10s for a further three hours’ tractor work, £5 for the grass seed mixture, about £4 for labour for eight hours and £24 for the loss of hay or the equivalent thereof as a result of having the country shut up from October to March.

On the other hand, in calculating the cost of feeding barley meal to replace the crop Mr Hughes took it that an acre of crop would feed 20 cows for 30 days. Eating 41b of barley meal a day, the 20 would eat meal to the value of £1 or £3O in the 30 days, which was cheaper than growing crops. One acre of turnips produced 20 tons, which was equivalent to 1 ton 12cwt of dry matter. This cost £37 10s to produce while the equivalent weight of barley meal by dry matter—l ton 14cwt—cost £45. Questioned about the allowance made for hay, Mr Hughes said that it was a replacement cost. With barley meal at -ETv a ton landed in Nelson, Mr Hughes said that it was possible to buy more food for the money in that than in hay of inferior quality landed at a cost of more than £8 a ton. He said that 11b of barley meal was equivalent to 3‘/alb of meadow hay.