Trevor followed the cows every 2-3 days applying ProGibb with a small boom-spray set up on the back of his quad bike. Trevor left an untreated strip in every paddock he applied ProGibb SG so he could go back and check to see if there was a response. In every case there was a response and the difference between the treated paddock and the untreated strip was noticeable within 3-5 days.

Trevor normally grows pasture at a rate of 30kg /DM a day and when ProGibb SG was applied the rate climbed to 50-55kg /DM a day. For Trevor's farm, that translated to a 60-80% increase.

To ensure there was no difference in the treated and untreated pasture quality Trevor's consultant took pasture samples and sent them to a laboratory in the United States for a thorough analysis. The results came back to show no difference in the treated and untreated pasture quality.

On the 15th of August Trevor opened the gates straight into 20-day rounds, when normally he would have been on 30-day rounds using supplementary feed to extend the first rotation as long as possible. Trevor started out trying to maintain his usual supplementary feed rate of 2kg per cow per day but after reducing it to only 0.5kg per cow per day the cows were still walking straight past it, so he stopped it altogether to avoid wasting it.

As a result of applying ProGibb SG, Trevor's milk cheque was extremely positive. Milksolids production until the end of September 2007 was 11.5% up. The Waikato average for the same period was 1.5% down. The Walters September milk production was a record for the 25 years that they have been on the farm.

Also, Trevor and Suzie were able to cut just as much silage off the farm as they did in 2006. The local average for supplement yield at the same time was 60% down.

The benefits of the extra feed also began to show themselves in Trevor and Suzie's 07/08 mating statistics. The Walters' cows mated at +0.6 Body Condition Score (BCS) better than the previous spring. In turn they had an empty rate of only 3% (11% in 2006), which is great news in a good season, let alone in the tough conditions of 2007/08. The 6 Week Herd in Calf Rate was also significantly higher than the previous year at 85%, compared to 75% in 2006/07.

Brian Wilkinson is responsible for nine Landcorp farms totaling 1400 ha and milking 4500 cows between Foxton and Shannon. He says he was interested in the concept of ProGibb SG from the time he first heard about it last autumn.

"I like to give the benefit of the doubt and try new products once I'm convinced of the science."

While individual farm managers incorporated ProGibb SG applications into their own systems in a variety of ways, Brian says the results from applications in both autumn/winter and early spring 2008 were enough to convince him to use it across the whole operation again this autumn.

"There was a clear and unquestionable difference between paddocks which had been sprayed, and those which had not," he says.

The alternative to using ProGibb SG would have been to apply increased amounts of N to lift DM production.

Paddocks were treated using the farm's own spray equipment and driver.

One of the main reasons for using the growth enhancer was to build covers for calving, which starts 25 July. But with 1000 cows in winter milk, and close to half the total herd wintered at home every year, autumn applications also proved useful, Brian says.

"We trust it now. It's a fantastic tool. I don't think we'd do anything differently with it. If anything we will have more widespread usage of it this autumn. We may look at combining it with light applications of urea, but I am not sure yet."

“We had no grass. I estimate it went on at 1550 kg DM/ha cover, and 21 days later we had 1850 -1900 kg DM/ha. The cows were able to graze paddocks that previously I hadn't been able to get into because there was no growth."

Sprayed and unsprayed paddocks contrasted 'like chalk and cheese', he says.

"I will probably do the same thing this spring. It kept the grass there so my girls were still cycling come mating on 1 December – out of 830 cows we had 797 that cycled. I don't feed grain through the shed; we would use grass silage if things got tight. We can get through 15 t/day grass silage. Mostly we would feed it during those howling spring southerlies when our cows need a daily allowance of 24 kg DM/cow/day to keep them warm, and producing. Spring is our worst time."

Two rounds of ProGibb SG was enough to make up that typical spring gap between feed demand and supply. "I think it's cheap. It's not a miracle worker though. You have to have your fertility right. And you need the right soil temperatures, 6 deg C and climbing, to get a good response."

With 40% of cows first calvers, and himself only in the second year of milking after working with drystock for many years, Andrew has set a goal of 430 kg MS/cow for 2009/10.

"We're going to drop 100 cows out of the herd this year, take the pressure off the farm, feed them well and hopefully achieve a big challenge. I actually want to get to 450 kg MS/cow."

Andrew says he first heard about ProGibb SG from his accountant, and was pretty open minded about the concept. "It sounded worth a try, and like I say, there was no grass about so we had to do something."