Growth has been relatively strong throughout the month of September, consistently being at or above out long-term average.

This week saw an average growth of 34kg Dm/ha on drystock farms measuring grass, which is probably matching demand on a lot of farms.

Growth will dip dramatically in the next few weeks, as night will be longer and colder.

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While there may be a temptation there in a few weeks’ time to go back on paddocks with nice covers of 800kg Dm/ha plus, it’s critical that these are held over for spring months, where they are much more valuable.

Graze these late in to October and the green cover on them is gone, which will lead to very little growth over the winter months.

The only exception to the rule is regarding clover; no heavy covers should be left on clover paddocks as these will smoother out the clover.

Ger McSweeney – Millstreet, Co Cork

We still have a lot of stock at grass, with just the bull weanlings and about 2/3rd finishing cattle inside at the minute. The finishing cattle will soon be drafted for slaughter as fat cover is there now. Cattle were clipped pre housing, but with the milder days and meal feeding you can still see steam coming off them.

We have most of the heavy covers grazed off now, with just three paddocks left with a cover of 2,000kg DM/ha. There are a lot of paddocks in the 1,000-1,500kg mark, and even recently grazed paddocks now have 300-500kg Dm/ha on them but I will resist the urge to re-graze these. I need to have paddocks closed up now to ensure there is grass there in February for weanling heifers.

System Suckler to beef

Soil Type Variable

Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 1,010

Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 38

Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 33

Ken Gill – Clonbollogue, Co Offaly

Farm cover is a bit low but growth is holding up so I am hopeful that I will be able to hold cows and calves out until the end of the month. 60 cows and their calves plus 20 replacement heifers are grouped together, with paddocks generally being grazed out in a day.

Red clover was mulched last week and will get dung this week, with any remaining dung to be spread on planned silage ground for next year.

The 35 acres of oats that was undersown with grass and clover is looking well, and I hope that this will see my store cattle through for November.

I will likely feed out some whole crop silage with it to ensure cattle are getting adequate intakes.

System Organic suckler to beef

Soil Type Variable

Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 557

Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 20

Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 25

William Treacy – Hackballscross, Co Louth

We are kind of back on track again after a rough week last week weather-wise. We housed some finishing heifers and housed the larger of the batches of the spring calving cows to ease pressure on ground and grass supplies. While these cows were in we pulled the pin and weaned them, with calves now nicely settled and ready to head back out to grass.

Our pre-grazing cover has dropped back to 10-12cm as has our days ahead which is around 19 days. The priority now will be to keep grass in front of youngstock, which may mean having to house some more older cattle. Grass is still growing and the drier weather this week combined with less heavy covers is leading to good graze out.

System Suckler to beef

Soil Type Variable

Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 713

Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 46

Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 38