I attended a very interesting discussion group meeting this week. As part of preparing for turnout, we assessed the performance of the 2014 silage crop. Half of my group is in winter milk and most would be using beet and/or maize as a routine.

My silage, like most others, was rain delayed this year. Coming after a dry spell, the rain caused a burst of rapid growth. This dropped sugars and raised nitrate content in the crop, further delaying cutting to 11 June.

The true proof of good preservation is seeing only a few buckets of waste so far, however any DMD less than 70% adds cost to production. I had beet organised which helped but I have been feeding maize meal and rolled barley as a top-up to the crimped wheat.

Balanced diet

There are still some spring calvers and carryovers milking along with the autumn ladies. Average yields are hovering around 20l at 4.18f and 3.35p, so the silage cutting date has to be brought to mid-May at the latest. There is no pressure on silage stocks which should allow me to focus on quality.

It is easy to physically produce a balanced diet no matter what silage quality is in the pit. It simply involves matching whatever is available with other forages and concentrates. The problem is paying for the extras off my income.

Later cutting dates has given me extra grazing available. My thinking is now moving to supplementation in March/April to fill any gap in the grass wedge that might appear. Rain delays before heading date will have much less DMD impact than after.

Feeding grass

The next focus is grass for 2015 and not just grazing. Grass has to be fed too so slurry has been applied on some low covers at 3,000gallons/acre and the urea is getting impatient in the bag.

There might be a big bulk of grass in the fields and some may question soil temperatures, but just like missing the opportunity to cut silage then, any good opportunity to fertilize shouldn't be missed either. Spring could get busy yet.