The last seven days have seen little or no rainfall in most areas, leaving high soil moisture deficits around the country currently ranging between 50mm and 80mm, which is significantly restricting growth rates in some areas.

There is a change in the weather this week with some showers and lower temperatures. With less than 10mm expected in most areas, any improvements are likely to be small.

This week there was a big variance in growth rates but with a lot of soil in a high moisture deficit, things can change very quickly for those getting good growth rates. In a non-drought situation where growth is dropping below demand and grass is green in the fields, maintaining covers is important. Extend the rotation length to 25 days and fill the gap.

Drought

Farms that are in a drought situation already and are seeing grass start to wither are better to continue grazing these paddocks and utilising the grass while they can. This will give you the chance to clean out paddocks and get full utilisation of what grass is there.

All fertilisers need moisture in the soil to work. Fertiliser should continue for most, where grass it still green and there should be some moisture present. The use of compound fertilisers will help the grass plant as P and K will help strengthen the roots of the plant.

In a moisture deficit, the grass plant will be under stress and will have to work harder to get nutrients out of the ground.

Any farmers in a drought situation with little or no rain over the last few weeks should forget about N fertiliser until guaranteed rainfall.