Heavy rain and cooler conditions up to the beginning of last weekend have curbed growth rates into this week. This is not unexpected, as growth usually takes a week after improved weather to see a lift.

The lift will come, but this time around we’re not going to see a lot of farms growing 90kg and 100kg/day, like we did a month ago.

Growth is expected to be closer to the 70kg DM/ha mark, and farms should take action to reduce their demand below this number immediately.

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Some first-cut silage and reseeded ground should be coming back into the rotation, and this will help the situation on farms where average farm cover is low.

Farms that have been doing the right thing and taking out surplus paddocks to get quality right will inevitably be feeling a bit of a pinch this week.

Slower recoveries on mowed fields aren’t helping, but these farms should be able to grow themselves out of the deficit over the next week as growth picks up, provided cover hasn’t dropped too low.

High-quality silage

Too low is less than 150kg/cow, and at this growth will be slower making it harder to get out of the deficit. Cows will likely need to be supplemented with some high-quality silage or an extra couple of kilograms of meal for a few days to get back to a farm cover closer to 170kg/cow.

If it is above 180kg/cow there is too much grass on the farm and surpluses will need to be baled in the coming week.

Any early reseeds sown before the start of May will be nearly ready for grazing. It’s important to get the grazing management right on these swards if they’re going to be a success.

A reseed should be grazed at a cover less than 1,000kg DM/ha and fields should be cleaned out to 4cm. Cows will have no problem with this as the grass is full of sugar and very palatable.

A good cleanout allows light down to the base of the sward, encouraging clover and grass tillering. The next grazing will need to be in around 15 days as growth will be rapid.

On reseeds with clover, limited chemical nitrogen should be spread from now on. If some is necessary, half-rate spreading is more than enough.

Swardwatch

  • Demand should be set at less than 65kg DM/ha
  • If cover per cow is lower than 150kg DM/ha, some supplement feed maybe necessary for a few days to reduce demand.
  • Reseeds first grazing should be done at a lower cover, less than a 1,000kg DM/ha.
  • Subsequent grazings should be at covers less than 1,200kg DM/ha for the rest of the year.

    • Dairy farmers

    Daniel Rundle – Ardee, Co Louth

    The farm ran tight last week as cover per cow had dropped to 135kg but we’re back up now thanks to the aftergrass on some silage ground coming back into the round.

    Grass quality is good and we are taking bales off any field where quality is gone poor. We’re not topping anything. We’re finding that anything growing over 18 days is starting to show a bit of stem, so the round is fast at the moment.

    We’re spreading a unit/day of nitrogen after cows and any good clover paddocks are getting nothing. There was some ground reseeded yesterday. We had been planning to do it earlier but the way weather came it’s been our first real opportunity.

    Average farm cover (kg/cow) 150

    Stocking rate (LU/ha) 3.57

    Growth (kg/ha) 61

    Yield (l/cow) 26

    Fat (%) 4.64

    Protein (%) 3.7

    Milk solids (kg/cow) 2.23

    Concentrates (kg/cow) 2

    Ricki Fitzgerald – Kilworth, Co Cork

    Growth was excellent up to last week so we’ve plenty of grass. The biggest challenge has been getting a break in the weather to get surplus paddocks taken out as bales.

    We grazed one or two covers with 1,800kg DM/ha as a result, and it’s kept cover/cow strong. We have some reseeded paddocks also coming back into the round this week, and grazed the first of these on Tuesday at a cover of 1,000kg DM/ha.

    These paddocks got 20 units of nitrogen two weeks ago and will get nothing else for the next few rounds. Breeding has gone very well; we had a 35-day scan and one-third of the cows are in calf for the first 10 days of breeding.

    Average farm cover (kg/cow) 190

    Stocking rate (LU/ha) 3.22

    Growth (kg/ha) 50

    Yield (l/cow) 19.5

    Fat (%) 4.8

    Protein (%) 4

    Milk solids (kg/cow) 1.7

    Concentrates (kg/cow) 1

    Deirdre Hynes – Clarinbridge, Co Galway

    Grass was starting to get a bit tight last week as weather was just very wet and cold. We decided to go in with a few kilograms of silage by night to take the pressure off and upped the meal to 4kg.

    The cows were much happier and they are still cleaning out paddocks very well as we’re going into lighter covers of 1,200kg DM/ha. A lot of the paddocks have been baled or topped at this stage.

    As a result, quality is really good and this has helped our cleanouts as well. We dropped demand well back to 33kg/ha so we’ll only be feeding for another couple of days. Breeding has gone well so far, we had nine cows that needed to be synced.

    Average farm cover (kg/cow) 163

    Stocking rate (LU/ha) 3.27

    Growth (kg/ha) 74

    Yield (l/cow) 26.2

    Fat (%) 4.81

    Protein (%) 3.63

    Milk solids (kg/cow) 2.28

    Concentrates (kg/cow) 4