Very heavy rain on Thursday in Cork and Waterford was followed by more heavy rain across much of Munster and south Leinster on Saturday.

Many areas have received over 30mm of rain in the space of a few days, which is over one inch of rain.

As much of this rain fell in very heavy downpours, fields are wet and cows are back doing surface damage once again, with muddy grass and reduced utilisation.

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On top of the rain, air temperatures are currently colder than normal, but not by much. For the week up to 1 May, soil temperatures were actually running three to four degrees Celsius higher than the long-term average.

Utilisation

With drier and warmer weather set to kick in during the coming week, farmers will be hoping for a return to better grass utilisation.

Poor utilisation presents a number of problems, not least the fact that cows will go through more area than normal in order to get their feed.

This is often referred to as the fact that in bad weather, cows graze with five mouths, indicating that they walk some of the grass into the ground.

The second issue is that this walked-in grass or grass that is rejected because it is soiled doesn’t go away. As this grass is not grazed, it will be there at the next grazing, but, at that point, it will be lower-quality feed.

Ideally, these fields that are poorly grazed out should be targeted for an early next grazing, maybe at 16 to 17 days and at a very light cover in order to get the residuals back on track.