Ground is still very dry around the country. There was a nice amount of rainfall in places last weekend, but it was all needed for farmers struggling with drought conditions over the past month.

The dry weather looks set to continue, with weather forecasts predicting little or no rain for the next week.

The main aim now for farmers is to try and reduce demand for grass by feeding silage and concentrates to help build up a bank of grass for the autumn (average farm cover >1,000kg DM/ha by 1 October).

Some who were lucky enough to get rain at the right time are already exceeding their autumn targets for average farm cover and their main challenge is dealing with very strong covers of over 2,000kg DM/ha.

The dry weather is ideal for grazing these covers down to a good residual, especially when cows are limited to 12-hour grazings with a strip wire. However, farmers are worried that if the weather changes dramatically they won’t be able to graze these paddocks out properly.

Farmers in the midlands should soon start thinking about closing and earmarking paddocks they aim to be grazing first next spring.

Our farmer in mid-Clare has an average farm cover of 1,100 kg DM/ha (362kg DM/cow). Cows are entering pre-grazing covers of 2,200kg DM/ha. He got 14mm of rain last Saturday which helped boost his growth rate to 68kg DM/ha/day.

Cows are receiving 1kg of meal and are milking 14 litres at 4.31% fat, 3.81% protein (1.17kg MS) and 283 SCC.

In south Tipperary, our farmer has a growth rate of 52kg DM/ha/day and his demand is 48kg DM/day/ha. To help build covers, he is feeding meal and silage and each cow is allocated 2kg concentrate, 3kg silage and 13kg grass. His average farm cover is 857kg DM/ha (231kg DM/Lu).

Cows are milking 16 litres at 4.43% fat and 3.81% protein (1.37kg MS).

Our farmer in mid-Kerry has an average farm cover of 1,180kg DM/ha (429kg DM/LU) and his growth rate is 65kg DM/ha/day. Cows are grazing heavy pre-grazing covers of 2,200kg DM/ha.

Cows are milking 14.4 litres at 4.6% fat, 3.99% protein and 141 SCC. He is happy now that “Sam is home”.

Steven Fitzgerald, Farm Manager, TEAGASC Curtin’s Research farm

We got 6.5mm of rain here last Saturday and more last night, which is by no means enough, but we should see a positive response from it in the next few days.

The growth rate from my last grass walk on Monday was 40kg DM/ha/day but I expect this to increase after the rain. Demand is 30kg DM/ha and this is being kept down by continuing to feed 4kg silage, 3kg concentrates and 10kg DM of grass per cow.

The average farm cover is 930kg DM/ha (314kg DM/LU), which is 180kg DM/ha short for what we would like for this time of the year. We will continue to feed silage and concentrates for the next 10 days. The extra feed and a growth kick from the rainfall should hopefully help meet the target farm cover of 1,180kg DM/ha by 5 October.

Cows are entering pre-grazing covers of 1,700-1,800kg DM/ha and are grazing them well down to 4cm. Rotation length is at 38 days now. Grass dry matter is coming in at 16-18%.

There is a variation in dry matter percentages between paddocks that have clover in them and ones that don’t have much clover. The ones with clover are coming in 2.5% lower in DM than the ones that don’t. Cows are milking 15.5litres at 5.15% fat, 4.12% protein (1.48kg MS), 4.67% lactose and 147 SCC.   

Donal Patton, Farm Manager, Ballyhaise Research Farm

Our growth rate remains strong at 66kg DM/ha/day and demand is at 45kg DM/ha/day. We are feeding 2kg of concentrates per cow in the parlour. Cows are entering pre-grazing covers of 2,100kg DM/ha with the aid of a strip wire, and because ground conditions are so good they are grazing down to 4.1cm.

The nitrogen that was spread two weeks ago hasn’t received much rain and is still sitting, but we expect a response once the rain does come. We would be happy to maintain a growth rate of 50kg DM/ha over the next 10 days to leave us in a good order for the remainder of the grazing season.

The reseed is just peeping up now, so hopefully when rain comes it will take off and we can give it a grazing and a post-emergence spray. We will start closing paddocks on 1 October. We will pick paddocks fairly close to the parlour, which are dry, well set up with water and not too big. We scanned the heifers and cows last Saturday and we are fairly happy with the results. 10% of the cows were empty after 10 weeks of breeding and 75% were in-calf after the first six weeks of breeding.

The heifers were ahead, with 8% empty after the first 10 weeks and 85% in calf after six weeks of breeding. Cows are milking 14.6 litres at 4.75% fat, 3.88% protein (1.3kg MS) and 169 SCC.

TOMMY ROCHE, CASTLEISLAND, CO KERRY

Growth is still strong here in Kerry at 50kg DM/ha/day. For the last few weeks, I have been pre-topping paddocks to make sure we get quality regrowths. I have finished pre-mowing now and on Wednesday cows entered after grass with high pre-grazing covers of 2,000kg DM/ha. This is excellent quality grass and once the dry weather stays around there should be no problem grazing it down.

My average farm cover is well over 1,000kg DM/ha, so I am ahead of target. Last spring, we decided to take on 10 acres of maize. This will be harvested in late October.

During the year, a lot of surplus grass was baled off paddocks for silage. We took the decision in August to cut back on the amount of nitrogen spread because we were in such a good situation with grass and fodder and just blanket-spread a bag of pasture sward per acre in the first week of September.

I used the MooMonitor for the first time this year for the last six weeks of breeding and was very pleased. When it came to scanning, I was able to pinpoint cows that had issues before they were scanned. Scanning went well, with just 8% empty. I am moving to all spring-calving now and Dairymaster will be upgrading my parlour from an eight-unit double up to a 12-unit double-up. Cows are milking 16.5 litres at 4.10% fat and 3.74% protein (1.33kg MS).

Barry Donnelly, Abbey, LoughrEA, Co Galway

The weather this year suited my ground well. I have mixed land type, with some dry and some heavy land. Last week we grew 50kg DM/ha/day and demand is 38kg DM/ha/day. Our average farm cover is on target at 918kg DM/ha (427kg/LU).

Cows are entering very high pre-grazing covers of 2,200 kg DM/ha, but are cleaning out paddocks very well because they were cut for silage during the year. We are allocating one day per paddock and cows are grazing them out well. We have a stocking rate of 2.15LU/ha. The 103 cows are milking once a day for quota reasons and are producing 13.8 litres at 4.66% fat, 4.06% protein (1.24kg MS) and 186 SCC. Our cell count was at 90,000 cells for the majority of the year, but shot up once we went to once a day. I plan to scan the cows next week and hopefully the results will be good. To date, we have made 500 bales of silage as well as pit silage. All going well, 300 bales will be left over and can be used as a buffer feed during times of heavy rainfall and poor growth in the future. I plan to expand cow numbers next year by 20 extra cows and another 20 the following year. The plan is to build numbers to 150 in three years’ time, but I want to make sure I can handle these numbers by building slowly. Last year, I put in 90 extra cubicles and I will put extra units in the parlour next year.