The weather is wonderful for this time of the year. The blue skies and warm sunshine during the day are making grazing conditions excellent. There are very good growth rates all around the country this week and perfect grazing conditions for mid-September. Some farmers are reporting 80kg/day, even on low nitrogen inputs.

Some are cutting out surplus paddocks this week, but they need to be very careful because this silage could end up being fed back in a few weeks’ time, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The target farm cover is between 400 to 500kg DM of grass cover per livestock unit, so if you are stocked at 2.5 cows/ha then you’ll be able to handle 2.5 x 500 = 1,250kg DM/ha of an average farm cover.

If covers are very strong, and while grazing conditions are good, you may still need to get a strip wire up so that cows graze down the paddock and good grass isn’t wasted. Where growth is still good, some farmers have no need to feed and are growing a bank of grass that will see them into the autumn.

Our farmer in south-Tipperary is enjoying the fabulous weather. He says cows are cleaning out paddocks very well because conditions are so good, but this is affecting regrowth. His growth rate this week is 50kg DM/ha and demand is 56kg DM/ha. He has an average farm cover of 845kg DM/ha (226kg/Lu). Cows are milking 15 litres at 4.36% fat and 3.76% protein (1.3kg MS).

In south Wexford, our farmer is going well, with a growth rate of 61kg DM/ha and that is including freshly mowed paddocks. His stocking rate is 2.25Lu/ha and his average farm cover is 961kg DM/ha. Cows are producing 18 litres at 4.35% fat and 3.84% protein. With a low stocking rate, at the moment he is concentrating on grazing the reseeds with the heifers and milking cows. He has most of the out-block mowed for baled silage and he feels quality will be excellent for extended grazing. Our farmer in mid-Kerry has an average farm cover of 1,149kg DM/ha (390kg DM/Lu). His growth rate is still strong at 73kg DM/ha/day, and cows are entering high pre-grazing covers of 1,890kg DM/ha. He has taken out five paddocks for baled silage and is spreading the last round of fertilizer – 40 units of urea.

STEVEN FITZGERALD, farm manager, TEAGASC CURTIN’S RESEARCH FARM

Ground is getting very dry here in Fermoy. It is becoming very noticeable at the tree roots and hedges, where you can see the grass burning up. Last week, we grew 71kg DM/ha, but I expect this figure to be down dramatically this week. There is some fog and dew down in the evenings and at night, but it isn’t enough. With no real sign of rain anytime soon in the forecast, we have decided to continue to feed 3kg of concentrates to the cows. We are on target for an average farm cover of 950kg DM/ha (317kg/Lu) and could cut out meal feeding, but with no prospect of rain it is better to leave it in as a preventative measure. Fertilizer spreading will finish up this Saturday. We are currently spreading 18 units of CAN after cows. Rotation length is at 32 days and we are aiming for 35 days by the middle of the month. Grass quality is excellent and dry matter is 18%. Cows are entering pre-grazing covers of 1,600kg DM/ha. We gave the reseeded paddocks a quick graze. They had covers of 300 to 400kg DM/ha and we grazed them for 12 hours. This will help promote tillering and the dry weather at least helps to do a good job grazing them down. Cows are milking 16.5 litres at 4.95% fat, 3.98% protein (1.51kg MS), 4.62% lactose and 138 SCC.

DONAL PATTON, FARM MANAGER, BALLYHAISE RESEARCH FARM

Grass is flying it this week, with a growth rate of 74kg DM/ha. The sunny weather we are having is really suiting this farm. Demand is 47.5kg DM/ha/day so we are building covers easily here. Our average farm cover is 862kg DM/ha (288kg/Lu) and our stocking rate is 3LU/ha. We are on target with farm cover and we were able to take out one paddock for baled silage this week. I won’t get carried away taking out these strong paddocks, because you don’t know what’s around the corner at this time of the year. Rotation length is at 32 days. During this dry spell, we are taking the opportunity to graze wetter paddocks that are prone to flooding. They have covers of 1,400 to 1,500kg DM/ha. This will upset the rotation and some paddocks that should be grazed now will get strong, but I think any chance to clean out those wetter paddocks should be taken. Grass dry matter is 14 to 15% and we are being careful to shake off grass well, because it is very wet with the dew in the mornings. We got a paddock reseeded last week. It is on heavy ground and reseeding turned out later than I would like. We used two diploids Piccadilly and Drumbo and a tetraploid Twymax. Cows are milking 15 litres at 4.65% fat and 3.78% protein (1.3kg MS).

Donnacha Tobin, Aglish, Co Waterford

Our growth rate is very good this week, at 70kg DM/ha/day, we have been waiting a while for growth rates like this, because we have been on the verge of drought for some of the summer. At the moment, we are walking cows a mile up the road by day to an outside block, to build cover on the main grazing block. Our stocking rate is 2.59Lu/ha and the average farm cover is 890kg DM/ha (343kg DM/Lu). We blanket-spread the last round of fertilizer with a bag and a half of 18:6:12. Some of our ground is reclaimed and needs building up fertility-wise. Cows are entering pre-grazing covers of 1,600kg DM/ha, which is ideal for this farm. I don’t like going over 400kg DM grass cover per animal because I find that covers can be hard to graze out properly and are slow to grow in the spring. The 116 cows are milking well, producing 18 litres at 5.06% fat, 4.11% protein and 124 SCC. Cows get 1.5kg concentrates to attract them into the parlour and cover them for grass tetany. I will probably switch to once-a-day milking from the start of October for quota and to allow cows build condition. We contract-reared the heifers this year and were very happy with their performance and they all scanned in-calf. The cows at home also performed well, with just 5% empty after 11 weeks of breeding.

Patrick Lennon, Killydressy, Ards Peninsula, Co Down

The weather is great here in Portaferry with temperatures hitting close to 20°C during the day, but the nights are cooler. We spread the last round of fertilizer over half the farm last week, spreading a bag of CAN per acre. Our growth rate is 43kg DM/ha/day and demand is 41kg DM/ha/day, so we have decided to increase the concentrate input to 4kg/day to help build covers for the autumn. Rotation length is at 28 days and will be pushed to 30 days in the next week. The average farm cover is 665kg DM/ha and we hope to build this to 1,100kg DM/ha by 1 October. If we don’t meet this target farm cover we will have to feed silage as well as meal. Luckily we have 150 good-quality round bales of silage that were cut off strong paddocks early on in the year. This silage can be used whenever required and is a great asset to have. The 127 crossbred Jersey cows are milking 19 litres at 4.6% fat and 3.91% protein (1.66kg MS). Out of the 127 cows, just five turned out empty after 13 weeks of breeding and one heifer out of 26 was empty. The stock bulls were all fertility tested before breeding and that gave us great confidence that they were in good order to work.