Heavy rainfall over the last two weeks has halted the opportunity for many farms to capitalise on early grazing. Stock that were released outdoors at the start to mid-February have in many cases been rehoused. This was the situation at Tuesday’s Teagasc Grass10 farm walk held on the farm of Pat Joyce Jr, Moorefield, Williamstown, Co Galway.

Weanlings were turned out to grass on 11 February but were rehoused two weeks later. While ground conditions deteriorated, they were not the sole reason for rehousing, with Pat explaining that weanlings were housed to guard against pneumonia after a sharp drop in temperatures.

Heavy grass covers

As is the case on many suckler and beef farms, favourable grass growth last autumn and continuing over the winter has resulted in heavy covers of grass being present. The farm had an opening cover of 1,106kg DM/ha on 4 February and this is putting extra pressure on to get stock back grazing as soon as weather allows. Teagasc beef specialist James Keane said the challenge facing farmers in a similar situation is getting the first grazing round completed and setting the farm up for the second rotation. In Pat’s case there is no other option than to push the target date for finishing the first round of grazing back from 11 April by about 10 days.

Keeping the spring rotation planner on course is not a straightforward target to achieve as the later turnout is delayed, the more pressure it will put on to get the grazing area cleaned off. James advised farmers that once weather allows, light stock should be turned out to drier areas of the farm to get the grazing rotation started. He advised Pat to concentrate on grazing heavy covers and getting 2,000 gallons to 2,500 gallons of slurry applied to kick start growth and combat against a shortage of grass in the second rotation. He said lighter covers should receive 23 units of nitrogen to keep enough grass ahead of stock or another option is slurry applied through a trailing shoe so that grass is not contaminated for grazing.

Beef specialist John Heslin told farmers urea remains the best value nitrogen source and reminded farmers that there is likely to be 20% of nitrogen still present when applying fertiliser to silage ground. This needs to be taken into account in calculating what nitrogen to apply to meet the requirement of 100 units of nitrogen for reseeded ground and 80 units on permanent pasture.

Prioritising turnout

About 90% of the Joyce farm has been reseeded in the last five years, which is providing a huge advantage in having a supply of grass to get stock out early but also to increase the farm’s stocking rate. However, where the stocking rate is not increased in line with higher grass growth, it will also present challenges in managing grass.

This is also a challenge on the 23ha farm, with the current stocking rate of 1.85LU/ha not fully capable of maximising the potential of the reseeded ground. Teagasc B&T adviser Charlie Devanney said this is the next hurdle for the farm to overcome, with a new slatted shed providing the opportunity for this to take place. In the past, the 24-cow suckler herd was split into spring and autumn calving. This is now changing to a spring-calving herd targeting an 11-week calving period from January to mid-March.

Pat says the strongest bull weanlings are likely to continue to be sold to maintain a source of cashflow, with the focus on retaining heifers to increase the farm’s stocking rate to store stage, or depending on finishing budgets, retained through to beef. To increase the number of stock available for grazing, first-calf heifers and lighter suckler cows will also be prioritised for turnout once conditions start to improve. This will serve two goals in also improving the nutritional intake of cows that need the greatest attention.

Grazing infrastructure

When reseeding, the farm also put a plan in place to improve grazing infrastructure. Water troughs were placed in the centre of paddocks, which is greatly aiding in tailoring the size of paddock to grass demand.

Temporary electric wires can be set up quickly and provide a huge benefit in setting up paddocks to graze silage fields. This allowed Pat to keep on top of grassland management in 2016 with removing surplus grass as baled silage also helping to maintain sward quality.

James Keane told farmers that reseeding should be the final leg of increasing grassland productivity. He said that applying lime and concentrating on increasing the phosphorus and potassium level of soils may be sufficient in improving grassland productivity to a level that is more than sufficient for a high percentage of suckler and beef farms operating at a low stocking rate. Reseeding presents a cost of about €300/acre and should be carried out in line with an increasing stocking rate to gain a return on investment.