While in the east and south, periodic showers have made ground conditions sticky, but those on dry land appear to be managing OK.

The forecast for the next few days is very mixed.

Temperatures are to drop and sporadic, thundery showers are forecast in many places.

Where cows have been out, of course you should do all that you can to keep them out. Bringing cows in and feeding silage should be the last option. Including silage in the diet really messes up the ability to get a good cleanout from paddocks and it will take a few days of readjusting before cows resume proper grazing ability again.

House if needs be

Of course, if ground is too wet to graze then you have no option but to house the herd. Where ground conditions are 50:50 for grazing, then on/off grazing should be used to keep grass in the diet. This means the herd only goes to grass for two three-hour periods in the day. Best results with on-off grazing are achieved when the herd does not have access, or at least not unrestricted access, to silage after coming inside.

In terms of setting up grazing allocations, at this stage cows should have an intake of around 15kg dry matter per day. Deduct from this the amount of supplement that is being fed and then allocate this amount of grass in a 24-hour period. You must verify allocations based on residuals.

Large covers

Driving around the country I see some herds are leaving behind a huge amount of grass, even in dry conditions. Just because farm covers are high is not an excuse to allow residuals to increase. The target is 3.5cm.

If ground conditions are challenging, graze lighter covers. I know this is difficult on many farms as the lighter covers have already been grazed.

At this stage, target average farm cover should be between 600kg/ha and 700kg/ha but on a lot of farms average farm cover is still over 1,000kg/ha. It will be a big challenge to bring this down. Some farmers have dry cows and maiden heifers out and are moving them every 12 hours or more, depending on the ground.

If you have a high average farm cover you can probably afford to spread less nitrogen now and save it for later in the year.

I think in such scenarios it would be reasonable to spread 60% to 70% of normal rates in the second round of fertiliser, so 30 units of urea/acre instead of 46.

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