Farming Alvorada
City: Jóia/RS
Owners and Managers: Fernando Luiz R. Cunha e Fernando Hernandez Cunha
Technical advisor: Luis Henrique Correia
Productive System Description
The property currently has a total feasible area of 952 ha: from which 260 ha are areas of integrated crop-livestock systems (soybean / annual winter pastures), 419 ha are native pastures, 32 ha are summer perennial pastures (Tifton 85) and 12 ha are summer and winter annual pastures (Sudan Grass – Summer / Black Oats – Winter).
Initial Diagnosis
1) Summer / winter forage imbalance: until then the property did not have the 30 ha of Tifton 85, having a great winter forage supply, however for the summer there were forage restrictions, mainly of nutritional quality for primiparous cows during the mating season;
2) Winter pastures tuning: two corrections were necessary, first, the stocking rate adjust for the available winter pastures and pasture height control; and second, the annual ryegrass introduction in pastures areas of integrated crop-livestock systems;
3) Cattle herd stratification and forage management for primiparous cows;
Integrated Production Plan
The established production goal for the system is to have 350 bellies, with an 80% minimum weaning rate, and 20% as annual discard rate, with slaughter at 24 months old and the females’ first service at 24 months old.
The breeding season defined for the production system is 90 days, between November and February, aiming to concentrate the births between September and October (using the native pasture as the herd feed base).
Results obtained so far
1) The overall pregnancy rate for the 2016/2017 breeding season was 79% (9 percentage points greater than the previous year), namely:
Adult cows – 70%
Single cows – 86%
Primiparous – 94%
Heifers – 86%
2) The annual winter pastures have had great return and persistence, enabling its use with quality until the area is converted for soybean cultivation (October);
