TECHNICAL: Large-scale dairy farmers may be interested in the latest from Dutch firm Schuitemaker. A nearinfrared (NIR) sensor kit for its Rapide forage wagon lets the user see/record crop dry matter yield at the point of cut — which, in Holland at least, has implications for subsequent slurry application.
As part of a new ‘mineral flow cycle’, farmers in Holland are limited by law to how much slurry they can spread. Now milk quotas have ended there, many producers want to ramp up production — but in that small country there’s not enough land to accommodate the extra effluent. The only way around the limit is to show the actual nutrient depletion by forage crops; if this is large enough then permission can come for more slurry to be spread. And the only way to track nutrient status is to log what goes on to the land and what’s taken off it.
Enter Schuitemaker’s kit. Offered both on new machines and as a retrofit kit, this records crop dry matter content and yield on the move to provide field-by-field evidence of nutrient depletion.
