A Lincoln University dairy farm has come up with some figures on the effect on production levels of milking once a day during calving.
The commercial demonstration farm, managed by the South Island Dairying Development Centre, milks 650 cows on 185 hectares in Lincoln, Canterbury.
The centre's executive director, Ron Pallow, they milked once a day for the first six weeks of this season to ease the pressure on farming systems during the lactation and calving period.
He says the results weren't surprising, in that milking a cow once a day in the first six weeks is up to 12% less productive than milking twice a day.
But Mr Pallow says that production loss needs to be weighed up against the benefits to the farming system as a whole.
