The ownership of this website has now been transferred to BioActive Soils, effective from 19 June 2023. BioActive Soils is Southland-based with a proud 10-year history of delivering on-farm success with their recipe-based biological fertilisation programme.
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The founder of GrazingInfo, Vaughan Jones (6.7.1931 – 19.8.2018) spent his life researching, experimenting and working to improve agricultural practices. To allow this work to continue, the PDFs and Excel spreadsheets on the website are now freely available to all. Thanks to those who have donated to his work in the past; your support has been much appreciated.
The most important things in life are our health and that of family, friends, soils and animals. These are all recorded under Health.
In 1960 we won The Most Improved Dairy Farm in the Waikato award, and visiting farmers wanted facts and figures. In 1987, the NZ Livestock Improvement Corp (LIC) followed our advice, backed up by evidence from NZ and USA dairy farms, and changed from Breeding Index, to Breeding and Production Worth. In February 2013, Lincoln University recommended using our most profitable number of cows to milk, by using the spreadsheet called Dairy Cow Numbers for Max Profit.
In 1997 the Waikato Times wrote two pages on a dairy farming couple Tania and Brendan Fernyhough from Walton, Waikato, who lost NZ$244,000 in 2009 simply because of poor farming practices and were about to lose their farm because their bank would not lend them more. She contacted Vaughan and used GrazingInfo eBook information, and to their delight changed to a profit of $300,000 pa. After two weeks of GrazingInfo advice to NOT feed lime flour before calving, but to feed Solminix, so milk fever deaths stopped, animal health improved, mastitis and somatic cell counts decreased.
Farmers who apply adequate LimePlus as described in Minerals in Soils, Pasture & Animals in the Calcium folder, can then stop using urea, so earthworm numbers increase, eliminating Facial Eczema and growing more clovers, eliminating ryegrass pulling, facial eczema and pasture rejection from mould, and also reducing weeds – without any spraying. Doing all the above and feeding the animals Solminix makes them healthier, with less mastitis, one farmer dropping from 30 to 1 case, and with less internal parasite treatment of young stock. Read Dairying Milk Increase Profit & Quality. Read the Testimonials that show some of the hundreds of success stories. Some members wrote that it was the most profitable investment they had ever made saving some farmers tens of thousands of dollars.