Weekend forecast looks promising

Growth rates have been subdued over the last three weeks, but with good weather forecast for the weekend and early days of next week, growth should see a lift.

Some farms are getting tight at the moment and the news of a good forecast is welcome.

It will be important to walk the farm regularly in the next two weeks to stay on top of grass quality.

Even with a small burst of growth, paddocks will get strong in the space of a few days. Some of these will need to be taken out as surplus bales to manage the wedge.

Not doing so will see covers get too far ahead of cows and grass quality deteriorate rapidly.

Target cover per cow at this time of year is around 170kg DM/cow. If the farm is already well above target, more growth will cause problems with a lot of surpluses.

In that scenario, closing a proportion of the farm for silage to go in the pit might be worth doing.

Cows should be going into pre-grazing yields of 1,300kg to 1,400kg DM/ha. Any paddocks getting above 1,600kg DM/ha should be identified for mowing in the coming week.

Meal feeding level should be at no more than 2kg/head/day unless cover is well behind target. Feeding more than this has no positive impact on breeding results or cow condition if cows are getting a big enough allocation of quality grass.

In fact, feeding more than a couple of kilos will cause a substitution effect and reduce the amount of grass that cows consume.

Fertiliser

There will be a good bounce out of nitrogen spread at this time of year. Where clover levels are low, cows should be followed with 0.8 units/day. In a 21-day round that’s around 17 units/acre.

In paddocks with better clover levels, half-rate nitrogen is an option. Some farmers will use parlour washings but nitrogen levels are low and clover content would need to be above 20% of sward content.

In terms of reseeding, there is still time to take ground out. If grass is plentiful taking out 5% to 10% of the platform for a reseed would be of benefit.

St Margaret’s, Co Dublin

We got some badly needed rain here this week. Growth had been starting to dip and the place was getting very dry. We actually had paddocks closed for surplus bales, but ended up going back into one to take the pressure off and have one more left in case we need it. We’re grazing covers of 1,500kg DM/ha at the moment and cows are in good condition. We’re into the second week of breeding here with the cows and it’s going well, with 60% submitted now. Our first-cut silage is ready to go, so once we get a dry spell, we’ll be taking that out. With regard to fertiliser, we’re spreading 30 units of nitrogen/acre at the moment in the form of protected urea.

Teagasc Clonakilty, Co Cork

We’re going into slightly heavier covers than we’d like to be at the moment. The average pre-grazing yield is between 1,500 and 1,600kg DM/ha. Grass quality is still relatively good but we had to top one paddock after grazing as there was a bit of stem showing and the cows hadn’t cleaned it out that well. The platform is getting around 13 units of nitrogen/acre after each round. The part of the block that has high levels of clover will be getting parlour washings only for the rest of the year. The first round of breeding is finished and we’ve given the six cows that didn’t come bulling a shot of prostaglandin. They were all scanned earlier in the season and they are cycling.

Kilcolgan, Co Galway

Grass is a little bit tight here at the moment so a bounce in growth would be welcome. We have almost 8.5% of the platform out for reseeding with silage ground also out and ready to cut, which has meant a little more pressure on the rest of block. The reseeded ground was only seeded two weeks ago so we’re a while away from that being back in the rotation. The cows are going into nice covers of 1,500kg DM/ha and they’re cleaning them off well. We’re following cows with 19 units N/ac and the paddocks with good clover levels are getting half-rate N only. We’re on the fourth week of breeding and have 97% of the cows served.