Heinz Eggert

Co Kildare

The dry weather this summer has suited farms with heavy soils as our grass growth did not suffer from a lack of soil moisture in recent weeks.

Grass utilisation has been excellent and my swards are consistently grazed down to 4cm due to good ground conditions.

I sold my 2013 spring bulls in late June through a live exporter to Italy. They averaged 500kg and I was happy with the price. I also sold my beef heifers live two weeks ago at 468kg to a finisher.

As a result, my stocking rate has reduced to 1.97 LU/ha (1,485kg LW/ha) and my grass demand is currently at 30kg DM/ha/day. Growth has been running around 50kg DM/ha/day nearly all summer.

I will be in a good position to build grass for the back-end. I am applying my last round of fertilizer after each grazing. Low P and K index soils are getting 1.5 bags/acre of 18:6:12 with sulphur, and soils that are index 3 and 4 are getting approximately a bag per acre of Sulpha CAN.

My second-cut silage was cut at the end of July. It received 1,000 gallons of slurry and two bags/acre of 18:6:12. It should be ready for grazing again in the next seven to 10 days.

I removed my stock bulls from the cows on 3 July and separated bull calves from heifer calves to form two grazing groups. I plan on giving them a worm dose next week and I will weigh them to monitor their performance.

I have also started to let the calves creep graze ahead of the cows to ensure that the cows are cleaning out the paddocks, while not restricting the calf access to grass.

This year, I have put a lot of emphasis on monitoring cashflow on the farm using the Teagasc cost-control planner. I find it very useful to review what my production costs are compared with what I budgeted at the start of the year.