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Some farms are going to have too much and others are not going to have enough.
I can’t recall there ever being a time when the weather was as variable as it has been for the past few weeks.
Farmers along the south coast have been getting loads of rain – too much rain causing fields to reach saturation point.
Farmers in the north eastern coast haven’t been getting any rain and are in drought territory. While farmers in the west and north-west have been getting a mix of rain and sun so they are happy enough.
Those in the middle of the country have been experiencing a very dry period with total rainfall levels over the past six weeks well below normal.
Thunderstorms
That was the case up until Saturday night, but the regional variation of the weather went up an octave as a result of widespread thunderstorms.
The nature of the thunderstorms was that some places got very heavy rain while other locations, less than a few miles away were bone dry.
With no more rain in the forecast, what will happen to grass growth rates will largely depend on whether the farm has got rain or not.
If more than 20mm of rain has been received over the past 10 days then I would think that the farm is well set up for growth.
Farms that have received less than this and haven’t had substantial rain in the last three or four weeks are now heading for a reduction in grass growth and they should be planning for this now.
The only real thing they can do now is to slow down the rotation length by being on the upper end of average farm cover targets and being prepared to graze slightly higher covers than they would like.
Demand can be reduced by cutting any paddocks closed for silage now and postponing any planned reseeding.
Demand can be reduced by cutting any paddocks closed for silage now and postponing any planned reseeding.
When the rain does come, these farmers should react quickly to reduce average farm cover by removing higher covers for silage.
For the farmers lucky enough to have received rain, they can be confident that grass growth will remain healthy for another few weeks and should target an average farm cover of 160-180kgDM/cow.
The key task over the next few weeks is to measure grass every four to six days and take action early.
Because the weather has been so variable, the correct action on each farm will be different, even though the farms could be next to each other.
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