Be prepared for the glut

Growth rate averages have crept into the 20s for the first time this year on our measuring drystock farms and I’d expect this to double in the coming days with the promised heat.

According to Teagasc’s Pasturebase system, we’d grown almost 50% less grass than the five-year average to mid-April. Indeed, we are back a tonne per hectare on 2017 already. No doubt these damning stats will be forgotten about with a string of consecutive good days.

In 2016, growth rates went from mid-40s to hitting treble figures in places almost overnight. Farmers weren’t in the grass mindset after the difficult winter and grass got away from us quickly and it took almost a month to wrestle control back. I saw one commentator saying that he expects to see balers out in a fortnight, despite the torrential rain and mass movement of cattle back in off the land in the west and south on Monday and Tuesday.

Be prepared for the grass glut. It’s the perfect time to close up more silage ground, given most are already late. The advice is to still aim for a late-May cut so adjust N rates accordingly (allow for two units per day uptake).

Many will aim for bulk this year but be careful not to delay first cuts for too long. Doing so might reduce chances of getting a good second cut in, while allowing a lot of fibrous material to develop at the bottom of the sward will mean that the crop will take longer to come back when removed. Remember that grass will head out from late-May and this will mean a huge reduction in feeding value. As we have been saying for weeks and weeks in this column, think outside your main cuts as a means of building back up fodder reserves this grazing season. A good grazing platform will have lots of bales provided we have the wherewithal to cut and make them.

When turning stock out in the coming days, be conscious that we need to build covers too on farms that are skint. Use the dry weather to target good clean-outs – grass stretching in essence. We need to get back into the grassland management mindset quickly when the spell of good weather comes.

Co Offaly

System suckler to beef

Soil type free-draining loam

Farm cover (kg DM/ha) 338

Demand (kg DM/ha/day) 13

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 17

Finally, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel as fields are beginning to green up. Luckily, I had a smaller pit in reserve to feed stock over the past three weeks as I’d normally have cows and calves gone to grass well before 1 April. It will be a challenge now to not only make top-quality grass silage this summer but also to ensure slabs are full as we’re essentially a month behind last year.

All ground has received around 30 units of fertiliser to date. Silage ground will be top-dressed with CAN to reach the target of 90 units for N. All silage ground got slurry three weeks ago.

I have 73 store cattle on an outfarm and hope to get more up there as soon as I get a chance, now the weather has hopefully settled. This block will get a further bag of CAN or a bag and a half of 18-6-12 depending on P and K indexes. Calving has quietened down with only three births in the last week.

James Flaherty

Co Kerry

System suckler to beef

Soil type variable

Farm cover (kg DM/ha) 1,095

Demand (kg DM/ha/day) 30

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 20

The cows, yearlings, and calves had been at grass, but due to the turn in the weather on Monday evening I had to bring cows and calves back in again. The ground is now saturated and it will take a number of days to dry out. I hope they will be back out by Friday if the dry weather comes.

Silage in the yard is extremely scare, and care is being taken to stretch this as far as possible. All stock indoors are being fed ration at the moment, with the cows being fed 4kg of ration to restrict the amount of silage they are eating. Thirty-five yearling bulls stayed at grass throughout the bad weather and will not be coming in. These are currently grazing silage ground that I’ll close over the next few days and spread fertiliser on as soon as possible. All cows are calved and I am in preparation for the breeding season ahead. I aim to start AI the middle of May this year with the cows and start breeding the heifers one week prior to this.

Newford Herd

System suckler to beef

Soil type dry to heavy

Farm cover (kg DM/ha) 692

Demand (kg DM/ha/day) 40

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 40

Calving has finished here and went well. We calved 90% of the herd in six weeks. We had four sets of twins and five cases of mortality. The average weight of calves at birth was 43kg, with bulls at 45kg and heifers 41kg. Cows were treated with a mineral bolus on Friday last and received their leptospirosis vaccine. Breeding begins on 23 April and I will be doing my own AI.

There are 75 cows now outside and I hope to get the rest out this week along with some youngstock. The rest are inside and lime is being spread on the slats and on the calves’ straw bedded area to keep infections under control. Our grass cover is slowly building on the main block and I need to push this higher to be able to maintain 107 cows during AI. Thankfully growth has picked up to do so. I’m currently monitoring cows for heats and there looks to be a good deal of activity. We got slurry out recently at a rate of 1,700 gallons/acre. We bought two teaser bulls and they have arrived on the farm.

Brian Doran

System suckler to beef

Soil type free-draining clay

Farm cover (kg DM/ha) 902

Demand (kg DM/ha/day) 6

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 7

There is a good cover of grass across the farm but the biggest problem is getting a spell of good weather to get out grazing. I turned out all stock last week but I had to rehouse cows and calves on Monday. I have managed to keep the yearlings out on short allocations. Thankfully, I still have enough fodder for another few weeks yet but hopefully I won’t need it. All of the grazing ground has got fertiliser at this stage. Some paddocks got 2,500 gallons of slurry per acre and the remainder got just over 30 units of N. I plan to go with a bag and a half of 18-6-12 this week across the entire grazing block to push on grass as my demand is going to increase rapidly. Silage ground has received three bags of 18-6-12 and I will top it this week with 40 units more of N with Sul-CAN.

All of my cows have thankfully calved at this stage and I let out the stock bull with them on Monday and he will remain out for around 12 weeks.

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Weather warms up but land is still tender