The plan is to harvest first-cut silage on John Oliver's farm in mid-May, weather-permitting.

Silage ground on the farm near Limavady, Co Derry, has received around 2,500 to 3,000 gallons of slurry/acre, plus 2.7 bags/acre of 27% nitrogen fertiliser.

The silage area now includes two grazing paddocks with high residual covers over 2,000kg DM.

These paddocks were grazed in the first rotation, but there was a poor clean-out, which John has put down to a high cover being carried over the winter.

Cleaning the sward off for silage should lead to better grass utilisation over the rest of the grazing season.

John is also draining a six-acre piece of land on the farm and plans to reseed these fields using minimum cultivation techniques within the next week.

Grass varieties selected for the fields include Gracehill, Callan and Fintona.

Read more in this week's Irish Farmers Journal and at www.ifj.ie/dairylink.