Talking to farmers this week, the difference in morale is striking . Farmers in the west are in great form, growing lots of grass and have plenty of silage round.
The farmers in the east and southeast are crying out for rain. Grass has run out; silage is getting tight and feed bills are stacking up.
On the bright side, there is rain in the forecast, a lot of it at that. Soil temperatures are high so once rain arrives, growth should start lifting rapidly.
Allow ten days post-rain before spreading fertiliser for those who haven’t had rain the past two weeks. If the farm has had rain in recent weeks and the farm is green, fertiliser can be spread now.
A compound product like 18-6-12 or an N + K product should be spread before the deadline.
Rotation length should be extended beyond 30 days now, meaning farms should be allocating no more than one-thirtieth of the farm each day. This will allow farm cover to build and make the most of good grass growth over the coming weeks.
Beef farmers who suffered during the drought should carry out a fodder budget to ensure there’s enough silage on the farm this winter.
Jack Spillane – Tipperary Farm, Co Tipperary
There’s not much of a story in our grass at the moment. We’re extremely dry here now this week and badly need rain. There’s rain in the forecast but we’ll need a lot.
There’s little to no growth at the moment and we have 230 of our older cattle indoors. They’ve been moved to a finishing diet now and we’ll be pulling a few out of this group every couple of weeks for slaughter.
The other 115 older animals are outside and being fed silage in the paddocks. They’re not being allocated any grass. The weanlings are the only cattle being allocated grass. They are going into covers of 300kg to 400kg DM/ha and getting 2kg/head of meal per day.
We’re holding off until consistent rain comes before spreading any fertiliser and we’re planning to weigh the weanlings next week. Health wise cattle are good.
System Dairy calf to beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm Cover (kg DM/ha) 403
Growth (kg/ha) 8
Demand (kg/ha) 10
John Dunne – Portarlington, Co Laois
Grass growth is very poor at the moment, and like most farms in the area we’re just hoping for plenty of rain to fall. We’re currently grazing ground that was meant for second-cut silage. We held off on cutting and the grass is basically standing hay now. The cattle are very content on it though.
We have one more week of this left so we’re hoping the rain that’s forecast will start the farm growing again. So far, we have about 80% of our winter feed secured. Ideally, we’ll get a good September and we’ll be able to make another lighter cut of silage to make up the deficit.
We’re going to be sowing fodder rape this week on barley ground, and this should also help with winter feed. We harvested more barley this year and as a result we have more straw. This can be fed as part of the cow’s diet after housing.
System Suckler/dairy calf to beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm Cover (kg DM/ha) 468
Growth (kg/ha) 20
Demand (kg/ha) 38
Trevor Boland – Dromard, Co Sligo
Grass is flying in our part of the world. We had really good growth over the last few weeks and we’re building cover nicely. We spread two bags/acre of 18-6-12 two weeks ago and that’s really pushed things on.
That’s all the fertiliser we’ll spread for this year. We’re autumn calving here, and so far we’ve about 60% of the cows calved. Cows are in good condition, calving at grass themselves. We have our beef heifers on 2kg of meal at grass and we’ll sell these before the winter.
These are the heifers we purchase on top of our own. They’re Angus animals and will be finished off grass.
Our own breeding heifers and weanlings will be dung sampled this week as part of the beef welfare scheme and we’ll be planning a dosing programme accordingly. This is a great feature of the scheme.
System Suckler to weanling/beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm Cover (kg DM/ha) 1460
Growth (kg/ha) 69
Demand (kg/ha) 41
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