February is bowing out with it being one of the wettest on records in many parts of the country, which has left some farmers with little to no ground grazed off, particularly in traditionally drier areas of the country.

It’s likely that you could count on one hand the number of farmers that will hit the 30% grazed area by 1 March target, which will consequently leave the St Patrick’s day target of another 30% a challenge to say the least.

Many farms will just have to adopt the policy of pushing target dates back by 10 days, similar to what the heavy farm targets would be. This may also seem challenging with such little grazing done in February, but it’s also important to remember that a larger volume of cows are now calved and rumen size, and consequently increased intake capacity, will be increased going to grass.

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This will still put pressure on grass supplies for the second round, with a rotation length of 40-50 days between paddocks grazed first in each. Growth conditions are improving though and we should hopefully see growth hitting double digits this week

Another factor we have to be mindful with all this is a delay in fertiliser application. Bar some slurry (in low volumes), ground has received very little nutrients and will show the effects of this very quickly. An application of 25-30 units N/acre should be applied on ground once ground conditions and the weather post sowing allow.

For the mean time it’s very much about trying to get grass in to cows whenever possible. Reels and pigtail posts are here to stay for now.