Congratulations! Very impressive efforts sir.
What substrate(medium) have you used? How are you recirculating water? What nutrient are you using?
If it is too early to answer, please post answers once you get the results.
As you know, hydroponic fodder generation does not involve any medium. it is simply soaked seeds, good water given 3-4 times a day in an environment of 18-20 degrees and 50-60% humidity.
As of now, I am using borewell water and maintaining the temp of 22 degrees with 45-50% humidity. hope this works…if not, I have to install a RO water purifier and reduce the temperature to 20 degrees.
Thank you Bhayya GOOD Efforts. Go ahead and keep it up.
MANNE.SN,
for Vasudha Green Farms,
09133498366.
Hello Farmers,
I m planing to start a dairy farm at konkan Areas in Maharashtra,
Firstly i will start with local cows (gauti cows) which yields around 5L as for my start for 3 to 4 month. after that i planed to buy HF cows but some guy told me the Fertility level is too low for HF cows rather than Jersey.
So now i m confused to go for what? so that i can plan accordingly.
request your suggestion.
Thanks in advance
Bhatti Ji…
how did your hydrophonics come along ? You have not updated us. please let us know if your trial was successful.
Dear Kasturiraju,
After going through this thread, I am amazed by your knowledge and above that, your valuable contribution to others. God bless you for that. Can you please tell me if barley/maize seeds are available all around the year ? how much is it costing ? I am from chittoor, 4 hours away from Bangalore. So, where can I buy the seeds for hydrophonics ? I am getting together my research and plan to setup a farm with 50 cows initially. So, doing the ground work and working on economic feasibility. How much is the barley seeds/maize seeds ? I saw your posts mentioning at 12 rs/KG but it was in 2012, 2013. Did the prices go down or increase now ? where can we buy the seeds from ?
Hi each and everyone and akhill,
sorry, since last few months busy with various , multiple activities and hence, away from writing anything. but I was frequently, watching all posting on forum.
My intention is, all of you to make use of this article and contribute back to it to contribute others, further. Hope, it’s happening. Sincerely, request all concerns to make this article alive and very valuable for the people who are looking for it.
There were lots of corrections taken up at our dairy farm…based on last three years experiences. They are:-
-
creating the shed to store the dry fodder , for all season protection.
-
enhanced the silage storage facility from 120 MT’s to 200 Mt’s.
-
Separated , each level of animals by creating different sheds for calves, heifer’s, pregnant cow’s and Milking cows. For various reasons, few of are like… to have better attention on feeding, health management , animal handling etc.,
-
enhancing the bio-gas production from 30 cub-mtr to 80 cub-mtr, for more cooking gas (10 families) as well as to run the Bio-genset.
5)This summer, faced lot of heat stress problem and future expected more. To arrest it , fogging system, shade creating in free stall area.
- Routine maintenance and corrections in all aspects.
on slow phase…going on…lists are their …further. will be keep sharing …the same…
akhil,
we are procured the barley from Rajasthan, madhyapradesh and Punjab. some times the batch was good and some time the traders take advantage of our dependency and compromise on quality of supply. In hydroponics, the equipment and seed play’s the key role. so far we procured the barley @ Rs.16- 17 per kg plus transportation to our destinations (it varies depends on the quantity and place aprox. Rs.5-6 per kg). Better, to visit in person any of these places, identify the genuine traders to buy. You can also, try with white maize (good,cleaned,unique size) locally, it is also equally good as barley.
Time being, we are forced to stop our hydroponics machine (even we have seed stock for one month requirement) due to severe power cuts i.e. more than 20 hours in a day due to summer power cuts (need dg power for other activities too i.e. chopping off supplied excess green fodder for silage etc.,) and since getting outsourced comparatively cheaper local green fodder.
Dairy farm, means no permanent or one solution. You should have alternate solutions to each and every type of problems/hurdles.
hope clarified you…
kasturiraju.
Thank you for the detailed reply sir. Some other clarifications please
How much quantity of seeds are you ordering at a time ?
what is the storage life of seeds ? Can I buy 3 or 5 tones at a shot and store it ? How many weeks will they stay good ? Any precautions needed to store the seeds properly ?
Please elaborate on fogging system too.
thank you.
First two trials have not been successful. This is mainly due to heavy power cuts.
I have put the trial on hold now…since one of our neighbor has agreed to grow napier fodder on contract. I will do the trial after monsoons are over…
can you please throw some light on growing napier on field ? how many days it will take for complete growth ? and how many cows can one acre feed (assuming 30Kgs per cow per day).
The first cutting can be done in 60 days. Then grass can be cut every 45 days.
The thumb rule is 1 acre for 5-6 cows.
I feed 18-20kg grass per cow. With this, upto 16 cows are managed.
Other points to note : Napier grass does not grow well in heavy monsoons (like we have in Mangalore-Kasaragod region), last year the grass was in hibernation for nearly 6-8 weeks in monsoon. I am sure it will happen this year as well. I will not say no to rains!!. Also, the grass needs lot of water in summer seasons. We faced some water shortage in this summer and there was green grass shortage for a month.
Thank you Bhatt Ji
Also, if you have any idea, can you please let me know if maize can be grown by ourselves to use for hydrophonics ?
In 1 acre, how much quantity of Maize can be grown ? and if i am to buy outside (maize or barley grains), will they be easily available all around the year ? if i buy 5 tons at a time, what is the shelf life period ? how long can i store them ?
- You can grow your own maize, it has to be dried properly before storage otherwise you will get fungus.
- 1 acre you can grow anywhere from 1 ton to 4 tons maize, depending on seed quality and cultivation practice.
- It is easily available in all the wholesale markets, plus points buying outside is that it is dried and stored properly. Price may be double compared to when you grow yourself.
- It can be stored upto 6 months, you will need to use some chemicals for preservation, like boric acid for insects and other mechanisms to prevent rats and also other insects from destroying the seed.
You can start from buying from outside, from your farm, you grow maize and make silage. Its a better utilization of maize plant.
Good luck.
Nikhil
Corn cultivation international yeiled average is 5.5mts per acer where in India gets average 4 mts. However recently in Karntaka US based seed company supplies hybrid seed (not GMO) which expect above 5mts average yield
tks.rgds
rajan mathew
Hello
In a dairy setup, i guess maize is more of a fodder plant. In such case, does the hybrid/US company branded seeds make a difference? will it yeild more from fodder plant perspective?
Regards
Roshan
corn seed can be the main ingredient in concentrated feed to be prepared for diary. and its leafs can be used in fodder.
Hello,
Please advice on usage of beer waste in dairy farm.
I am planning to procure Beer waste and feed it to cows. Any advice on the qty that can be fed to the cows ? anyone who has been using beer waste for long period ? any negatives of using it ?
I have got a quote of Rs. 4 per kg of beer waste. Transportation cost will be additional Rs. 2 for me.
Thanks,
-Gana
Hi
- It is a pain to store and very less shelf life.
- The material is in wet form, more than 80% water. You are going to pay for water. Just for comparison
1kg groundnut cake GNC with less than 10 % water costs around Rs. 30.
1 kg Beer waste with 80% water costs Rs. 6 including transport, so if you remove water then it will cost Rs. 30 (6/0.2) per kg of dry beer waste.
I feel better to use GNC which is definitely better than beer waste in terms of protein and cow intake.
Good luck.
Nikhil
Hi friends,
After long time…I would like to share my experience to cross check with all of you…
After two years, I have run around Bangalore adjacent districts to add on few of milking cows, since we felt we can increase the nos. of milking cows in our dairy farm. It was very shock to see the price tags of the medium performing cows like 6-7000 ltrs per lactation (an average 17 - 18 ltrs per day) yielding were asked Rs. 1,30,000-00 per cow of 1st lactation, Rs.94,000-00 for second lactation and Rs. 80,000-00 for third lactation cow.
Surprisingly, most of the sellers nor dairy farmers or well knowledge persons about cows. Just they bring animals from either near markets, govt. sponsored schemes beneficiaries farmers with whom they will have financial interconnections… as where is basis and just add 20 - 40 thousand plus their expenditures like nurturing for a week, transportation and taking care etc., further to note few of will bring 4-5 months old calves from surrounding market nurture it based on their interests and knowledge, make it pregnant and sell. Very few home born calves will be nurtured and sold.
Post seven months pregnant cows exchange or circulate minimum 3- 4 hands and the cost start to add up. Very sad is very well known big/small/large dairy farms of nation are also procuring animals blindly by engaging 3 - 4 tier broker systems, knowingly or un knowingly. No details about animal background or any thing.
The risk of diseases, breed failure irrespective of good physical appearances, fail in yielding milk as per breed expectation because of prior bad maintenance, collapse of animal after calving because of prior poor /ignorance of nutritional feed to animals are more i.e. to an extent of more than 80%. Even though, the animal purchases was going like a hot cake…
Wondered, how can such a huge sensitive business transactional activity can go in this kind of blind ways…without any of the bare minimum knowledge or to the satisfaction to the buyer in such a illiterate way…of fixing price, buying cows that to surrounding of silicon city!!.
This clearly shows /proves the basic first slippery foot and out of his control situation has to undergo for a Dairy farming beginner …who really intend to start a commercial dairy farm…with all his home work.
Here the question or debate is not point out or comment on the practices…at least few of we who really indulged in commercial dairy farming can we group together to give a shape to sell the animals with record, history and details by giving a efforts to do justice to mutually benefit both buyer and seller in transparent way, instead of opportunistic human less, un-scientific … animal trading.?
Happy dairying…
kasturiraju.