ChileanJAR

During five successive years a milk production system under dryland condition was evaluated at Carillanca Experimental Station. The 16 ha were established with species not usad traditionally which involved 10 ha of Festuca arundinacea ev. Manade and Trifolium repens, mainly for grazing; 2 ha Medicago sativa ev. Huinca - INIA and 4 ha Lolium multiflorum - Trifolium pratense mixture for hay and silage. Every three years an oats crop for silage was sown hefore the short rotation pasture was established again. During spring and summer cows grazed the pastures and from May till August they were fed with hay, silage and concentrate in a free stall barn. The milk production was 6,033 L/ha and 4,495 L/cow with a stocking rate of 1.41 A.U./ha and a concentrate supplementation of only 0.166 kg D.M. per L milk. Nevertheless, the reproductive efficiency was 86.3%. D.M. intake was calculated to be 128 9 D.M./kg W^0.75 and the conversion efficiency of DM to milk was 1.15:1. It was concluded that autum calvings and good pasture management makes it possible to produce, under dryland condition, over 6,000 L milk/ha with low concentrate imput in the IX Region of Chile.