Dairy Management: what to do with high clover paddocks

Having walked eight or 10 farms in the last week, two things stand out. Firstly, there is a lot more grass around than normal and most farms are still in an active state of growth. Secondly, land is unsurprisingly wet after all the rain and grazing is virtually impossible on most farms.

The main concern is where there are high covers on high-clover paddocks. Having gone through so much effort to get clover established, there is now a risk of it dying back or dying out as a result of being shaded out over the winter. Clover likes light, but sunlight is low over the winter and even lower where high covers lead to more stolon death.

What to do about it is tricky. If land is too wet to graze then it must be left there. Some farmers on drier land that normally get out to grass in February are planning to graze these high-clover and high-cover paddocks first, but this will have implications for getting area grazed.

For those who don’t normally get out as early there may be an opportunity for them to graze them off with dry cows or youngstock if the weather and land dries up a bit in January or February which will be better than leaving it until March or April.

Carrying over very high covers of grass only, while not desirable, won’t have any long-term effects. See more on clover management here.

The winter is hard on youngstock, particularly spring-born animals. Performance at grass for dairy heifers is typically 0.8kg per day, but they normally only do half that in winter, even where silage quality is good and some meal is being fed.

Many weanlings have been housed early so they will be lighter than normal when they leave the shed next spring. Therefore it’s even more important to manage liveweight over winter. For a 580kg cow mature liveweight, the heifers should be weighing 250kg or 43% of their mature liveweight now. The mature liveweight is what they are expected to weigh when they are in their third and fourth lactation. When weighing animals, it is not the average weight of the group that is important, but identifying which animals are light and need extra meal and which are overweight and need no meal. Having heifers too heavy is as bad as too light.

There are a number of events over the next few weeks. The changes to the Nitrates Directive are massive and have huge implications for all of Irish agriculture but particularly dairy farmers. The Irish Farmers Journal is organising a series of information meetings for farmers, the first one on Monday 12 December at Corrin Mart, where the changes coming in next year and in 2024 will be outlined. Ted Massey from the Department of Agriculture will explain why the changes are coming, while Tadhg Buckley from the IFA will look at the implications for farmers.

Separately, Teagasc is holding its National Dairy Conferences next week, with the Cork event on 6 December and the Mullingar event on 8 December. Topics include markets, nitrogen use, calves and somatic cell count.