Crop rotation for a robust dairy farm

With the implementation of the new CAP and IPM guidelines, farmers are obliged to practice crop rotation on their parcels. Crop rotation is an important measure to make a farm more climate-resilient: through improved soil health, one gets a more stable yield, while crop rotation spreads the risks for farmers. However, especially on many Flemish dairy farms where monoculture maize is still often a common practice, this will be a difficult task. With this project, we want to provide these farmers with the necessary tools to achieve a successful crop rotation that fits within their management and within the preconditions of their specific farm. Together with the farmers, we are looking for answers to questions such as "With these cultivation choices, do I have a guarantee of enough roughage; in other words, is my roughage balance right? ", "What can I expect as a forage yield and how do I fit these crops into the dairy ration?", "Won't contract labour costs increase too much with a mowing crop on my more distant plots?", "Can I really compensate for this with more yield and/or lower weed pressure and less use of resources with my maize?", "What crop rotation choices have the most potential, so that my forage production is better able to withstand extreme drought or heat?" etc. Besides intensive supervision of three networks spread across Flanders, we are working on the development of a user-friendly calculation tool to support dairy farmers in finetuning the most suitable rotation scheme for their farms. Furthermore, we are demonstrating two crop rotation trials, and we actively pursue communication via meetings, press releases and social media.