Chicory for milk production

The 1997–98 season has seen a marked increase in the amount of chicory planted on dairy farms in New Zealand. However, no New Zealand data are available for milk production from dairy cows grazing chicory. As part of a larger trial examining the effect of summer forage crops on milk production, Grasslands Puna chicory was compared with Barkant turnips. In January and March 1998, grazing trials were conducted at No.1 Dairy, Dairying Research Corporation using 60 lactating twin cows. In January, chicory and turnips were break-fed at a constant allowance (4 kg DM/cow/ day) to supplement pasture offered at 3 allowances (15, 27.5 and 40 kg DM/cow/day). In March, these crops were fed at 3 levels (0, 4 and 8 kg DM/cow/ day) to supplement pasture offered at a constant allowance of 25 kg DM/cow/day. Chicory and turnips gave similar milksolids (MS) responses of 40–41 g MS/kg DM offered in January. Milksolids responses in March were higher for turnips, 34 g MS/kg DM vs 32 g MS/kg DM from chicory. In January and March the size of the milksolids response declined with increasing allowance. This could be attributed to an increasing amount of substitution at higher allowances. Chicory produced between 8.8 and 13.8 t DM/ha from 4 October to 10 March, offering a high quality summer-autumn forage crop and improved milk production when supplemented with pasture.