Grass growth

There is definitely some element of compensatory growth at present when it comes to grass growth rates. Farms with good soil fertility, good grass species and enough nitrogen applied can expect to grow 90kg per day or more for the coming week.

Weeks like this, when the countryside is literally changing before your eyes are great weeks to be a farmer and to experience it all.

It also means that you need to be awake to the rapid changes in growth. Covers that were at 1,500kg/ha yesterday could be at 1,900kg/ha tomorrow.

Think of grass as being like a banana; a green banana is the same as a grass cover of less than 1,200kg/ha – it needs more time to ripen.

A yellow banana which is ripe for eating is the same as a grass cover of 1,300kg to 1,500kg/ha while a brown banana is the same as a cover of 1,600kg or more – gone off.

The problem at the moment is that grass is only at the ripe stage for a few days before it goes off or goes too strong.

It means that farmers will have to skip over a number of paddocks to get to paddocks that are “ripe” for grazing.

These high growth rates won’t last forever, so don’t close up too much of the farm for long-term silage. If that means cutting light covers at a low bale count, then so be it.

Beef

In this week's paper we took a look at using beef AI on the dairy herd.

The key take-home lessons for me are that there are really only a handful of beef AI bulls from each of the AI companies that are any good, the judging criteria being calving ease, gestation length and beef value within the dairy beef index (minimum €80). The majority of the bulls are good in one area but bad in others.

The last thing farmers need to be at next March is hanging out of the jack trying to get calves out of cows that should have calved 10 days ago. That causes an animal welfare issue, rather than solving one.

There is huge uncertainty around stock bulls, both in their ability to actually get cows in-calf but also in calving ease and gestation length.

Best policy is to keep at AI for as long as possible, but switching to beef AI as soon as enough replacement heifers should be got. Every 100 dairy AI straws should generate approximately 30 heifer calves on the ground based on 60% conception rate to first service and 50% male to female ratio, before mortality.

Solar

Some farmers with solar and battery storage systems installed are complaining that they are still relying on the grid for power, even when the battery is full.

Where there is a heavy load such as milking machine motors and bulk tank coolers operating at the same time, not enough power can be released from the battery to keep them all going. It’s something to keep in mind and question the suppliers about if thinking of installing solar.

Another thing that was said to me recently was that while there is a good payback on solar, there is a better payback on other investments such as soil fertility, reseeding and good genetics, but then again there is nothing new or attractive about these technologies.