» Take the time to walk the stubbles of maize crops after harvest and assess weed control. You may need to change the products being used and their timing for next year’s crop.
» Regrassing new pastures: You want a perennial pasture to be just that and the longer it remains productive the cheaper it is to establish. Spray out the previous crop and take the time to create a good firm fine seedbed to maximise seed survival.
» Spray weed seedlings early when weeds are small, most post-emergent herbicides are safe when clovers reach two trifoliate leaves.
» Measure fodder beet yields accurately and use the Beet Guru app. Take time transitioning livestock onto the crop.
» Keep an eye on insect pests and weeds in late-sown brassica crops and treat accordingly. Monitor for an invasion of white butterfly, diamond back moth and aphids which can devastate crops over autumn.
» Soil test crop paddocks as early as possible. Early paddock selection of spring sown crops allows you to identify lime requirements and apply before sowing.
» Before testing, ensure no phosphate and potassium fertilisers have been applied in the previous three months.
» Consider annual fertiliser requirements for the coming season and discuss with your PGG Wrightson Technical Field Representative.
» Shearing reduces lice populations by up to 70 percent. Cover combs leave more wool and hence lice survival is higher, so when using cover combs or leaving bellies on, use higher dose rates of spray-on products.
» Pesticide activity against sheep lice is defined by specific modes of action, either knockdown products, usually nerve poisons, or slow-acting pesticides such as insect growth regulators (IGRs).
» Lice must contact and/or ingest the compounds to be affected.
» Fast-acting pesticides kill lice within a few hours of contact. When applied as a backline spray, allow up to eight weeks for knockdown products and 14 weeks for IGR products to kill all lice due to the time required for the pesticide to spread over the sheep.
» For fast lice kill rates use shower or saturation application methods using knockdown products.
» Where lice pressure is low, IGR products work well in managing populations, either off shears as a pour-on or when using liquid formulations on wool lengths ranging from three to six months, depending on the breed of the sheep.
» Remember for effective lice management in a flock, all animals need to be treated at the same time. Treat at least six to eight weeks prior to lambing, otherwise there is a risk of live lice transferring to newborn lambs, resulting in re-infection of ewes later in the season once chemical effectiveness wanes.
» Well grown heifers produce more milk, have greater lifetime performance and reduced replacement costs.
» Autumn pasture flush is often highly digestible, with low levels of effective fibre and high levels of crude protein.
» This can be a rapid diet change from digesting rough summer pasture, resulting in autumn ill-thrift.
» Offering supplementary fibre such as hay or baleage for 7 to 14 days through the early autumn flush helps by supplying effective fibre, stabilising rumen function.
» Supplements like maize silage and cereal grains contain low protein, diluting the intake of pasture protein and reducing the load of ammonia to be detoxified by the liver.
» Weigh your heifers regularly and draft a light mob, if required, so they can be preferentially fed.
» Monitor trace minerals status with blood tests and liver biopsies.
» Avoid grazing early autumn pasture that is too low. The bottom two to four cm of a pasture sward contains dead plant material. This is where the most facial eczema spores and other mycotoxins are found in higher concentrations.
