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Our measuring farmers have grown 24kg DM/ha/day since last week, a 60% increase on the week before. Higher temperatures and more sunlight have brought ideal conditions for growing and more importantly eating grass. The vast majority of farmers have managed to get some class of stock to grass this week as ground conditions improved.
Those on the wettest ground have been able to take some baby steps with lighter stock and/or their driest areas. While these conditions look set to continue for the coming days, there is moisture forecast in western areas on Friday and Saturday.
Thoughts should be turning to silage ground now. We have two weeks to graze it as well as we can. Research shows that grazing high covers off silage ground in the spring and getting it harvested by the end of May can improve digestibility (DMD) by four units. This equates to roughly 1kg less meal that needs to be fed each day to the animals wintering on this silage.
While silage yield will be reduced by 15%, there is no reduction in overall farm forage production for the year – it is going into them as grass and not silage. To hit this date, we need to be going with around 2,000 gallons of slurry and 80+ units of nitrogen after close-up.
Some farmers are reporting that grass is getting away from them already. Having got slurry and fertiliser out in January, weather meant their hands were tied in terms of grazing subsequently. There are plenty of covers north of 2,000kg DM/ha (12cm) out there. Not clearing these out now will have knock-on quality effects in subsequent rotations.
Ideally, it’s cows that should be hitting these. If there are younger stock going in, don’t try to force them to graze out completely. It may be feasible to follow beef stock with cows and calves as a once-off to get things cleaned up, though this practice shouldn’t become a routine thing.
Cull cow groups would be ideal candidates for eating these away.
Derrypatrick Herd, Meath
Farm cover: 1,300kg DM/ha
Growth: 15kg DM/ha
Heifer and steer yearlings were turned out to grass last Friday (10 March). Yearlings were sent to some of the driest paddocks on the farm, which contained covers of 1,100kg DM/ha. The decision was made to provide 24-hour allocation of our medium grass covers in order to maximise utilisation and minimise damage while animals adjust to the dietary and housing change. Thankfully, weather was favourable and no damage was done to the first paddocks grazed.
Twenty-four cows and calves were turned out to grass on Tuesday of this week. Grazing in two groups of 12. Cows and calves were turned to paddocks with both adequate shelter to ensure calves adjust to the outdoor environment and suitable ground conditions to limit soil damage. There has been a noticeable improvement in ground conditions between yearling and cow turnout dates, that should ensure ground damage is minimised and therefore set the farm up to maximise grass growth for the grazing season of 2017.
Kildalton College
Farm cover: 712kg DM/ha
Growth: 30kg DM/ha
We turned 14 more cows out to grass on Monday with their calves – there are now 32 out and 49 of the 60 cows have calved. While many farms will have a huge bank of grass built up that might get difficult in the coming days, we’ve had ewes out since early-February keeping things in check and this has us in a great position to utilise lots of grass and get things moving. We are going with our second urea application (0.75 bags/acre) this week and I am expecting a good response given the growth rates.
After a difficult start to calving, things have improved. We are 50:50 AI/natural service here. Our five-star maternal cows were served with AI sires like SI2152 to breed replacements. Other mature cows got KJB and heifers got EBY and ZAG. Our Charolais stock bull, by LGL, went in on clean-up duty then.
Bullocks and ewes are currently grazing silage ground, which we plan to close on 1 April. After that, it’ll get 100 units of nitrogen via CAN (3 bags) and slurry.
Newford Herd, Co Galway
Farm cover: 1,272kg DM/ha
Growth: 38kg DM/ha
The farm cover here is high but there are no massive individual covers and our fresh calvers are out and mowing through the heaviest. In six weeks, we’ve calved 82 cows and have 85 live calves – it feels like it’s been a lot longer. There are 24 left and we should finish by mid-April.
With the good weather this week we were able to let out 72 cows and calves which was a great release for us – space was getting tight.
Yearlings will all be out by Thursday (today). There’s a slight delay with these as we have to draw them some of the way. Some of them are currently grazing out silage ground. This will be closed up in the first week of April and get 2,000 gallons of slurry and three bags of CAN to the acre.
The whole farm received a half-bag of urea three weeks ago and we’ll follow grazings with the same again. It’s been a great week for grazing, but I’m conscious that there is 16mm of rain forecast here for Saturday.
Ballina, Co Mayo
Farm cover: 1,281kg DM/ha
Growth: 32kg DM/ha
As one of the new BETTER beef farmers, I am putting a lot of effort into my grassland this year. My programme adviser John Greaney analysed my soil tests from the last back end and has instructed me as to where I should be going with what fertilisers so as to optimise my soil lime (pH), P and K levels.
It’s limestone land here and I’ve been able to on/off graze 10 weanling bulls in the last few weeks when things were wet. They got used to the routine after a while and got silage and a tiny amount of meal during the night, to keep them settled if anything.
At present, the bulls are not going into the heaviest covers – these are being left for cows and calves who will achieve better clean-outs.
In terms of silage ground, my first cut field is very wet so I grazed it tight in November, will fertilise it this week and take cuts on 10 May and then again in June. I’m going to reseed it this year.
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