Grass: The next few weeks will determine to a large extent the amount of grass you will grow, milk solids produced and costs of production for 2016. Here, we go into detail on closing management and what average farm cover to close at.

With growth rates higher than normal, many farms have average farm covers higher than they would like (greater than 1,200kg/ha) and will be under pressure to get 60% or more grazed within the next 30 days. Bringing home the in-calf heifers or other stock is one option to increase demand and get areas closed up. Weanlings won’t make much of an impression, especially not on heavy covers.

But for the next two weeks, I would cease grazing the heavy covers and focus on grazing lighter covers, as cows will go through these faster and regrowths will also be faster. Ideally, these paddocks should be dry, as they will be some of the first to be grazed next spring.

I know ground conditions are good on most farms, but the 12-hour break will be very useful now for getting a good clean-out, as we are in the last rotation.

The other useful thing about the 12-hour break is that grazings can be alternated between light and heavy covers. This will help to increase the area grazed, while at the same time work through the higher covers. Also, production should hold up better than if just grazing high covers.

On farms with the opposite problem – not enough grass – then reducing demand by selling some cows, eg the empty cows, or bringing in feed is your only option. Where silage needs to be fed, remember you only need to feed the herd, not each individual cow.

Some people will house 30% of the herd at night and give them 8kg DM of silage, which is the same as giving almost 2.5kg DM of silage to every cow. Rotate the cows to be kept in so yields and solids don’t fall.

Winter Milk: At the Teagasc/Glanbia farm walk on Peter Mongey’s farm in Co Meath on Tuesday, one of the key messages was that too many cows were calving in autumn, relative to the liquid/winter milk contract. In Peter’s case, he was calving close to 40 cows in autumn, when 20 would suffice to fill the contracts. In total, the bonuses he receives for liquid/winter milk amount to about €7,000 over the year.

With more milk being produced than required, this bonus is being diluted down with the extra milk, which costs more money to produce over the winter. This isn’t unique to Peter’s farm and is commonplace on many liquid herds.

Why produce expensive milk without any bonus? Best policy is to look at your own contract and decide how many cows you need to milk to fill it.

In many cases, the amount of liquid contract is small and could be filled by milking on late-calving and empty cows. The Teagasc Liquid Milk Conference is in Navan on 22 October.