Shane’s 40ha farm is split into two blocks, with 30ha around his yard and an outfarm located nearby.

At the end of 2016, Shane put €2,000 into materials and used his own labour to implement a cheap paddock system on his home block.

He now has 19 permanent grazing divisions on 30ha and can split these again is needs be, using temporary reels.

Listen to “Planning autumn grass: BETTER farm programme” on Spreaker.

Shane is placing a big emphasis on soil fertility in the initial years of the BETTER programme.

His farm’s average pH is 6.2 which is good, though there is still work to do in the area.

Soil P and K levels are good around his yard – the case with many farms as these are the easiest fields for slurry spreading.

The video above shows an 11-day regrowth on a paddock removed as surplus that then received pig slurry.

Shane spread his last round of fertiliser over the weekend. Ground with optimum P and K index levels got half a bag of urea and pig slurry. Low index ground received 1.5 bags of 18-6-12 fertiliser.

There should be an average farm cover of 1,500kg DM/ha (10cm) on farms this weekend.

To ensure that we can graze into the winter and have grass in the spring, farms should be designing and implementing a simple autumn rotation planner.

Autumn rotation planner

The aim is to begin closing up dry farms for the winter from 10 October, with wetter holdings closing their first field closer to the beginning of the month.

From then on, we aim to graze and close 15% of the farm each week. Crucially, we do not return to closed paddocks.

By the first week in November, we should have 60% of a farm closed for the spring and this will be our bank of grass for early grazing.

If animals are slow to work through grass because of weather conditions or heavy covers, consider getting the herd to eat lighter covers first to hit that all important 60% target.

However, think also about what paddocks you want to go to first in the springtime; ideally, dry paddocks close to the yard. These need to be closed early too. Your go-to paddock for slurry should ideally be the last one closed.

More from Shane’s farm in this week’s paper

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Full coverage: BETTER farm articles

Grass plus: above average growth but soft ground for some