Spending money: The two host farmers at the Irish Grassland walk on Tuesday majored on where to spend money and where not to spend money if you want to develop a business that can meet the needs of a growing family dairy farm. They were both adamant that dairy farmers will not be able to spend on sheds and fancy milking parlours if they want to grow and manage a business has the ability to take options and keep some flexibility.

The Hyland brothers used the example that they had to struggle moving milking equipment between parlours on a leased farm to allow them put aside cash so that they were able to take the opportunity of buying the leased farm, which they were lucky came up for sale. This is similar to the way David Kerr installed kennels for housing cows instead of building a big fancy shed.

Take the spending messages from both farmers (page 24) and adapt for your own situation. Have a plan for your business, taking into account your leased land situation, your scale, your family commitments, and where you want your business to go. Just because both farmers had a plan to grow their business to meet their family needs does not mean your plan should be the same. Tailor the plan to your needs.

Quota situation: I was talking to some farmers about the quota situation during the week and while all were aware of the national over-quota position, many were unaware of their own situation or had put any plan in place for next spring. Make sure you take a minute to write down where you are now on supplies, what you will produce for the rest of the autumn, and what you expect to deliver next spring.

Also note that many new entrants have received a quota of 200,000 litres with a fat reference of 3.58%, yet they are delivering milk with an average fat percentage a good bit higher – some are almost 1% ahead of their fat reference. This effectively reduces their available litres.

The same is true for producing milk in the autumn at higher fat content. Effectively, you’re filling more quota than the litres delivered. I’ll go into more detail on this next week.

Grass management: There were some very good growth rates recorded this week at farm level despite the drop in air temperatures, and the daylight hours getting shorter, especially when the rain is around. Be very careful taking out surplus grass at this time of the year. You don’t want to end up feeding bales back in two weeks’ time. Have your plan and get the last round of nitrogen out any time from early September onwards – you don’t have to wait until the closing date in mid-September. The response you’ll get to nitrogen will be better the earlier you apply, assuming normal growing conditions.

I know some farmers have decided to use up the last of the urea this week as there is plenty of moisture around and they don’t want to carry it over the winter. Others are planning on getting some phosphorus and potassium out, especially on paddocks that are low in the index.