IT’S now two years since Terry and Shannon Blasche swapped the warmth of northern NSW for the, let’s say, seasonal conditions of south-west Victoria. During that short time a lot has changed on the farm they now call home at Jancourt East.

For the past 16 months the Blasches have been part of the WestVic Dairy Focus Farm project. In late September, as part of that project, they opened their farm for the second time, welcoming around 60 local farmers and industry representatives to get an insight into their business. 

Terry explains why they applied to take part in this flagship program so soon after moving to the region.

“Farming down here is much different to where we were. Dairying anywhere involves challenges and whilst we had fine-tuned our business up in Fairy Hill, we realised that we’d need to adapt and learn a lot on the new farm.

“That adaption could have taken years to achieve, so when the opportunity to become a Focus Farm came up, we saw it as a way to fast track that process. Now over halfway through the project, we can certainly say it has helped us do that. Having the Support Group of local farmers and key service providers to discuss options and ideas with has been a huge help. It has given us the confidence to move ahead with changes and investment,” Terry said.

At the start of the project the following goals were decided by the Blasches’ in conjunction with the Support Group:

• Pasture renovation to increase home-grown feed production and consumption;

• Move the herd from year-round to a single autumn calving pattern;

• Improvements to infrastructure – including making the dairy single operator;

• Cost of production focus for the new farm and reduce debt if possible; and

• Looking to employ a staff member to reduce the workload on Terry and Sieghard - Terry’s father.

Several of the goals have been, or are well on the way to being, achieved already. A significant investment in the dairy means milking can now be comfortably carried out by Terry on his own – leading to a large reduction in labour requirements. These improvements include ACR’s, retention bars, automatic teat spray, Easy Dairy software and an automatic drafting gate.

The dairy feed system has also been upgraded. The new software allows individual feeding; new troughs have been installed; the purchase of a second-hand disc mill enables whole grain to be purchased, and a second feed head delivers a protein pellet to complement the wheat and barley.

Terry has been working closely with Webber and Chivell agronomist Glenn Cain since moving to the farm. Together they have overseen full renovation of about half of the 216-hectare property so far, with plans to cover the rest of the farm over the next two years already in place. The aim is to have productive perennial ryegrass in all paddocks. Terry isn’t a fan of summer crops, so once the renovations are finished summer crop use will be minimal.

Overall, the pastures are producing extremely well. The cows were on a grass only diet (grain still fed in the dairy) in mid-May this year – a time when many farms were struggling to build any kind of feed wedge.

Of course, not everything turns out the way you’d like. The turnips and rape sown last spring suffered from the sudden dry conditions and never really got going. They did provide some green feed for the cows in summer – but nowhere near what was hoped for.

Transitioning the year-round calving pattern to a single autumn calving has been a hot topic of discussion. Is it really the best option? How many cows can the farm carry through a wet winter? How will Aussie Reds handle an extended lactation?

Last year’s spring calvers were re-joined later, so will now calve again in late-January/February 2023. This spring, approximately 70 cows calved down, and a decision on when to re-join them will be made soon so that they can be fed appropriately as they enter the milking herd.

The Support Group meeting held in July went through the financials for FY 21/22. This is the first full year of data available since moving to the farm. This information, used in conjunction with Dairy Farm Monitor Project data, has been used to set the budget for this financial year and set benchmarks for future financial performance.