Peter owns Carilla Dairies - a 1350-hectare commercial dairy operation milking about 2100 cows.

Working side-by-side with agronomist Rick Jordan and nutritionist Tom Thorn, Peter aims to average more than 9500 litres of milk a cow a year.

Every cow wears an identification collar so that when entering the fully-computerised 50-unit rotary dairy, each cow is scanned and given an individual feed ration based on milk production.

"Cows with high production are fed more," Peter said.

Agronomist Rick believes reverting 200ha back to lucerne - after two years of lacklustre ryegrass growth - will increase production.

"Ryegrass has done the job, but not as well as we hoped for winter feed," he said.

"We are in the process of sowing lucerne back into the winter pasture, because it handles the heat better compared with ryegrass."

* Extract from a full report in Stock Journal, August 21 issue.