The last two weeks show how you can rapidly go from a feast to a famine when it comes to grass supplies.

Farmers who had oceans of grass in front of them at the beginning of the month when we saw some farmers hit growth rates close to 100kg DM/ha mowed out surplus (rightly so), but then found themselves feeding back some of these bales as growth dipped with cooler temperatures.

It’s a bit of an ‘egg on your face’ moment, but farmers are trying to operate a tight outfit and keep grass cover at that sweet spot of 170kg DM.

A quick few days of upping ration in the parlour or scattering a bale along the barrier at milking time should have rectified this, with some first-cut silage ground coming back in the rotation also taking the pressure off.

With growth now recovered and, as mentioned, this ground coming back in action, look at what paddocks are still on the stemmy side and aim to get these nicked off with a mower sooner rather than later.

Clover

The warmer weather we saw at the end of May saw clover surface for the first time after a cold first five months of the year.

It’s important that new reseeds and stitched paddocks are grazed at covers of 1,000kg to 1,1100kg DM/ha to encourage tillering and prevent the clover plant being smothered out of the sward.

Fertiliser should also be reduced now to encourage clover to actually work.

Clover is a lazy plant that hates nitrogen being applied to it, so a half rate (10 to 11 units/acre) should be applied to any paddocks with good clover percentages.

As always, graze clover with caution by preventing cows from gorging themselves and using bloat oil in water troughs.