Grass growth across the country exploded last week thanks to high temperatures and more sunlight.

Soil moisture wasn’t a big worry, but the rain across the weekend and early parts of this week will have put any early fears of moisture deficits to bed and helped to drive growth on even further.

For all farms, managing grass quality over the next couple of weeks will be a big challenge.

Quality is already becoming an issue for some, with stem starting to appear in paddocks and some covers running well ahead of target.

Let pre-grazing yields be the guide for managing quality. Aim for covers between 1,300kg and 1,500kg DM/ha. Anything above this is going to be difficult to clean out.

With growth as high as it is, any paddocks with covers over 1,600kg DM/ha should be marked for surplus bales.

Even paddocks with the optimum pre-grazing covers may still have some stem from previous rotations.

Topping?

Topping maybe needed to fix this, but keep in mind it will stunt recovery by about four days. The alternative is to mark these paddocks for bales in the next round for those who have plenty of grass.

Pre-mowing is another option, but cows can’t choose the grass they want to graze in that scenario and are forced to eat everything. This will dent production if there is some level of stem.

The majority of first cut silage has now been made on farms.

Preparations should be under way to get second cut ground growing again.

Slurry is the perfect starting point for this where available, to get N, P and K out.

All second cuts should be getting around 70 to 80 units/acre of nitrogen, 15 units of phosphorus and 80 units of potassium including the amount that goes out in slurry.

The nutrient value of slurry at this time of year is the equivalent to a bag of 9-5-32. At 2,500 gallons/acre that’s 18 units of N, 12.5 units of P and 80 units of K. Therefore, another 50 to 60 units will still be needed in the form of chemical N.

Swardwatch

  • Aim to send animals into covers between 1,300kg and 1,500kg DM/ha.
  • Use surplus bales to correct grass quality. The cost of making bales is much smaller than the cost of grazing poor-quality grass.
  • Get N, P and K back on silage ground this week.
  • April sown reseeds will likely need to be post-emergence sprayed this week.

    • Dairy farmers

    Bronwyn Fitzpatrick – Ballyhaise, Co Cavan

    The cows are on 24-hour allocations and clean outs are good. They’re going into covers of 1,300-1,400kg DM/ha.

    The cover per cow is higher than we’d like, so we’re planning to take out a number of paddocks for surplus bales in the next week.

    We also have some ground taken out for reseeding, and that was sprayed off earlier in the week. We’re currently just over three weeks into breeding and have exactly 90% of cows submitted.

    We will be using beef straws from now on, and any of the later calved cows will go on a fixed time programme. All of the heifers and a selection of the cows had been getting sexed semen up to this point.

    Stocking rate (LU/ha) 3.7

    Growth (kg/ha) 95

    Average farm cover (kg/cow) 203

    Yield (l/cow) 26

    Fat (%) 4.6

    Protein (%) 3.5

    Milk solids (kg/cow) 1.85

    Concentrates (kg/cow) 2.17

    Glenn Patterson – Drum, Co Sligo

    There is a lot of grass on the farm now on the back of growth rates over 120kg last week and in the high 90s for this week. Managing quality is a challenge and a large proportion of the farm has seen the mower.

    Three paddocks were taken for bales last weekend and another two will go as bales this week. The cows are getting 3.5kg of meal as we felt they were getting a good response from it, with grass quality being lower.

    The cows are being followed with 22 units of nitrogen/acre and ground that was baled is getting either slurry or a bag/acre of 29-0-14. The bulk of first cut was also made last week and slurry is going out this week.

    Stocking rate (LU/ha) 3.36

    Growth (kg/ha) 95

    Average farm cover (kg/cow) 213

    Yield (l/cow) 24.5

    Fat (%) 4.65

    Protein (%) 3.75

    Milk solids (kg/cow) 2.12

    Concentrates (kg/cow) 3.5

    Aidan Lawless – Johnstown Castle, Co Wexford

    Growth has been really good the last couple of weeks. The rain that came last weekend and the early parts of this week was needed as we were starting to feel a little bit of a drop. Recoveries on paddocks grazed and taken out for silage are really strong.

    The autumn cows are starting to drop back in production, and demand is dropping as well. They are eating about 16kg/day of grass and 2kg of meal. There is 18 units of protected urea going out this week.

    On 10 June we have our open day here at Johnstown Castle and we’re looking forward to seeing a big crowd. We will be giving the latest update on work going on here on the day.

    Average farm cover (kg/cow) 190

    Stocking rate (LU/ha) 4.6

    Growth (kg/ha) 85

    Yield (l/cow) 22.2

    Fat (%) 4.18

    Protein (%) 3.91

    Milk solids (kg/cow) 1.8

    Concentrates (kg/cow) 2