Rain has hit nearly every part of Ireland now at this stage and while there are still four or so counties with grass growth recorded at below 30kg DM/ha, farms are slowly starting to return to a more normal management system.

Building grass cover up to 1,000kg DM/ha will be unachievable for many, which will mean earlier housing for at least some stock types if we want to keep youngstock at grass, unless we see an exceptionally growthy September.

It’s unlikely this will happen, as the old adage grass grows grass applies; lower covers mean that grass growth won’t be as high as if we had ample grass to hand.

For this reason, you need to plan ahead and best assess as to how you will manage grass, be that supplementing cattle at grass, earlier housing of cows, cull cows or finishing stock or earlier weaning of calves to preserve grass covers.

Build covers

Most farms should be in a position to build covers up to 800kg DM/ha, with supplementation in the form of concentrates or forage at milking times relatively easy for dairy operators.

There are some farmers who do not allow grass covers to build as high as 1,000kg DM/ha in any year, citing the difficulties in grazing heavy grass covers of 2,000kg DM/ha or greater, particularly in wet weather, as well as the slow regrowth in these heavy swards.

For this year, we will have to take a leaf out of these farmers books.

As it stands, I would be wary of trying to build covers now to high levels (1,000kg DM/ha) by heavy supplementation.

While spring was wet, the summer was extremely dry and there is no guarantee that autumn grazing conditions won't deteriorate when we take the law of averages of rainfall into account.

It would be a monumental kick in the teeth to supplement with scarce fodder now just to see grass blowing in the wind in October due to ungrazable conditions.

Fertiliser

Once growth has hit above 30kg DM/ha, then it should be fine to apply 20 to 25 units N/acre.

Farmers need to be mindful of nitrates poisoning at the same time; mineralisation will occur and release N in the ground that has been sitting amid the poor growth over the last few weeks. The closing date for the application of chemical N is less than 10 days away.

Slurry can be applied up until the closed period (begins 1 October), so an application of watery slurry on paddocks after the closed period for chemical fertiliser kicks in could work well here.