A decision made almost four years ago is paying dividends on a Colac district farm.
Barongarook West dairy farmers Mick and Lee Ryan attended a Department of Primary Industries Feeding Pastures for Profit course in 2006 and decided to implement what they had learnt.
Today, the couple is reaping the benefits of better paddock management, with noticeable increases in milk production.
The couple has 240 milking cattle grazing on 130 hectares, with their daughter Ebony Charles and son-in-law Brock Charles working as farm managers.
The farm’s productivity now sustains a life for the Ryans as well as wages for Ebony and Brock.
“In 2006 we were fortunate enough to do a course called Feeding Pastures for Profit,” Mr Ryan said.
“That course itself significantly changed our dairy farming,” he said.
The course taught the couple to use rye grass leaf growth as a marker for pasture growth.
The information prompted them to change their grazing strategy, away from shifting cattle onto a paddock using a 30-day rotation to a rotation based on leaf appearance rates.
They now use a rotation which, depending on autumn rains, varies from 45 to 60 days during the summer-autumn period, 63 days in the middle of winter before reducing to less than 21 days in spring.
“We weren’t doing that, like 90 per cent of dairy farmers aren’t,” Mr Ryan said.
“Most farmers would be grazing rye grass on a 30-day rotation all year round,” he said.
Milk production increased from about 6500 litres a cow per year to more than 7500, levels the herd has since sustained.
Their pasture success has also reduced the amount of herd feed they buy onto the paddock.
“Our cows were doing six litres per day more than they have ever done before,” Mr Ryan said.
“Once we set that standard, we haven’t looked back.”
The Ryans will also host a DPI field session tomorrow night highlighting the findings of a 30/30 project.
The trial was at Lionel and Carol Clayton’s Irrewarra farm and included six farmers testing lucerne, brassica and sorghum pasture crops.
The trial is part of DPI’s  30/30 project, which aims to increase profit by 30 per cent by using 30 per cent more home-grown forage.
“Most of the farms in the Western District are perennial rye grass-based,” Mr Ryan said.
“What we’re trying to find out is comparable forages when there isn’t sufficient rye grass available,” he said.
Mr Ryan said being involved in the 30/30 project had kept him thinking about ways to maintain milk production during summer.

SUCCESS: Barongarook West’s Lee and Mick Ryan, pictured with grandsons Charlie, 1, and Archer, 3, have increased milk production by changing their paddock management following a Feeding Pastures for Profit course.