Keeping on top of grass in this weather is proving very challenging. I was on a couple of farms over the past week where grass had gone out of control. So half of the farm was either grazed or cut for silage, with the other half nearly fit for silage and very few paddocks at covers in between. The farmers had no option but to graze a few of the paddocks at high covers to allow the other paddocks to catch up. The cause of the problem was probably a failure to react to the burst of growth in time and take out paddocks for silage. The problem now is that with broken weather, the windows of opportunity to cut out surplus paddocks are slim. The following is one option where grass has gone out of hand:
Walk the farm and estimate the grass cover on every paddock.In the absence of data assume a growth rate of 80kg or 90kg/day.Try to limit the amount of high covers that need to be grazed. Accept a higher residual on these and immediately close them up for a light cut of silage after grazing.Set average farm cover at around 170kg/cow and pick out the paddocks that you are not going to graze.If demand is higher than growth rate, you must cut the lightest few paddocks for silage as soon as possible to bring demand back to the growth rate. Silage dry matter is a secondary concern to getting the grass right for the cows. Cut the rest of the silage when conditions are suitable.Get fertiliser and slurry on to the cut paddocks as soon as possible to get them back growing.Don’t spread fertiliser on paddocks yet to be grazed. Read more
Dairy management notes for this week
Keeping on top of grass in this weather is proving very challenging. I was on a couple of farms over the past week where grass had gone out of control. So half of the farm was either grazed or cut for silage, with the other half nearly fit for silage and very few paddocks at covers in between. The farmers had no option but to graze a few of the paddocks at high covers to allow the other paddocks to catch up. The cause of the problem was probably a failure to react to the burst of growth in time and take out paddocks for silage. The problem now is that with broken weather, the windows of opportunity to cut out surplus paddocks are slim. The following is one option where grass has gone out of hand:
Walk the farm and estimate the grass cover on every paddock.In the absence of data assume a growth rate of 80kg or 90kg/day.Try to limit the amount of high covers that need to be grazed. Accept a higher residual on these and immediately close them up for a light cut of silage after grazing.Set average farm cover at around 170kg/cow and pick out the paddocks that you are not going to graze.If demand is higher than growth rate, you must cut the lightest few paddocks for silage as soon as possible to bring demand back to the growth rate. Silage dry matter is a secondary concern to getting the grass right for the cows. Cut the rest of the silage when conditions are suitable.Get fertiliser and slurry on to the cut paddocks as soon as possible to get them back growing.Don’t spread fertiliser on paddocks yet to be grazed. Read more
Dairy management notes for this week
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