Average grass growth for the past week has been in the mid-40s, with a common range of between 30kg/day and 50kg/day, depending on the time between measurements and location.

Due to lower than normal grass growth rates in April, many farmers are behind where they normally are both in terms of having ground closed for silage and reseeding.

A few farmers have been in contact wondering if it is OK to burn off fields for reseeding now.

Their concern is that if grass growth rates don’t increase they might need all the land available for grazing.

Grass growth rates

It’s fair to say that while grass growth rates have been increasing in recent days, they are not yet in the zone where grass is really plentiful and growing at a very high rate.

That is probably due to the fact that nighttime temperatures are still fairly cold, with very low single-digit temperatures recorded most nights under clear skies.

The predicted grass growth rates for the coming week is between 60kg/day and 70kg/day, which is a substantial increase on previous growth rates.

I would estimate that it is unlikely that grass growth rates will drop much below this over the coming weeks, but I also wouldn’t predict they will increase much further either.

Warmer weather

Therefore, I would be very slow to set the long-term grass demand above 65kg/day to 70kg/day until we can be certain of much milder, softer and warmer weather that will drive grass growth closer to 100kg/day.

A demand of 65kg/day is a stocking rate of just above four cows/ha when 2kg of meal is being fed.

At farm level, multiplying cow numbers and other livestock units by four will determine the upper limit of stocking rate for the moment.

If this area facilitates paddocks to be skipped over for silage or reseeding then I think it would be safe enough to carry this out.

Ideally, you would like to see grass seeds sown by early May and hopefully they would get sufficient rain after sowing for good germination.

Leaving them any later could risk conditions getting too dry, particularly on drier, east coast regions.

For now, I think it is OK to spray off for reseeding, providing stocking rate doesn’t go above four cows/ha.