I was feeling very smug in May, writing about 14-day grazing rotations. I make no apologies for this, as I’ve realised in all walks of life to enjoy the good days as there are plenty of bad ones.

Back in May I was plate-metering residuals to make sure cows were grazing out paddocks close to 1,500kg dry matter per hectare (or zero if you use to work on the Irish system).

Ground conditions allowed for such tight grazing, thereby maximising utilisation and maintaining output. Grass was also leafy to the base.

I even plate-metered while mowing paddocks for surplus bales. I was surprised how tight I had to mow to achieve zero.

There wasn’t much spare thread on the top-link and, quite literally, it meant I was land-levelling the field with the mower.

I certainly wouldn’t mow this tight for main crop silage, as I like a two-inch stubble, but if cleaning up paddocks I don’t see much point in doing it unless you are going to reset grass quality to zero. Anything other than this is purely a cosmetic exercise, although those who believe in a regenerative approach might think differently – perhaps there’s some middle ground to be found.

My smugness has been very much diluted over the last six weeks, as I have started losing the chess game of managing grass in early summer. Paddocks that haven’t seen the mower recently are starting to look untidy, with some stem and seed heads appearing throughout the farm.

The rain came, as we all know – it’s usually my first excuse for relaxing grazing residuals, as I always prioritise protecting the ground. We were able to keep cows fully fed on grass. However, if it didn’t dry when it did, we would have had the usual problems of wet ground, lower dry matter intakes and even growth starting to slow down.

Deficit

The next problem was self-inflicted. Like the rest of the country, there is a serious build of silage stocks here and I didn’t want to be cutting surplus bales every week as they are a bit of a pain (but very much worth the effort).

To combat this, nitrogen applications were reduced to 15 units per acre per rotation.

Growth was certainly contained to a degree but now I’m facing a slight deficit. This has been exacerbated by working with a short rotation and fresh-cut paddocks not having the volume of grass on them for the subsequent grazing.

A 16-day rotation is great for maintaining quality in fast-growing conditions, but when growth slows it can be difficult to build the rotation length quickly enough.

I’m currently on 18 days and I hope to get to 20 days in the next week or so with a couple of cut paddocks to come back into the mix. I have also been able to fill the feed passage with first-cut silage as the cover was pulled off the pit to put the second cut in on top of it.

Hay

Hay making was another learning experience. I realised that I don’t have the patience for the job and I should have listened to my mum who informed me that five good days would be required.

Instead, I took a chance over a tricky weekend and have ended up with something that is best described as excellent dry cow feed.