Weather

Atrocious weather over the last week has called a halt to grazing on most farms. Whatever about a wet February being costly, a wet March is multiple times worse as the impact is far greater with more cows calved and cows getting closer every day to peak.

All anyone can do is their best, and nobody can control the weather or change soil type.

When housed, feed the best quality silage available and some extra meal to compensate for the lower energy in silage. The diet won’t be perfect when cows are housed, as the energy and protein levels will be below optimum.

However, it’s likely to be only for a short period, so don’t get too bogged down on that and instead focus on getting the herd back out to grass as quickly as possible.

Buying expensive and bulky feeds can often be counterproductive. While high in energy, feeds like maize and beet are very low in protein.

If feeding them along with grass silage and say a 16% protein dairy feed, the dietary protein level will be even lower than if just feeding grass silage and meal. Keeping it simple is often the best policy. Every day that passes is one day closer to better weather.

Bull selection

There’s lots of advice on picking bulls in the spring AI focus on pages 47 to 52. It’s such an important task, yet it is overlooked by many farmers, or at least not given the appropriate consideration. The number of low EBI bulls that are still being used is shocking.

There is a €50 gap in herd EBI between the top 10% of herds and the average herd EBI. That’s a 28% difference, and highlights the opportunity that exists for the average or below average herds to make real progress by “breeding up” their herd.

The other key point from ICBF is that a team of bulls is needed, with at least eight bulls being used across a 100 cow herd and more for a larger herd. Each of the bulls should be used equally.

ICBF analysis shows that while many herds are using a team of bulls, they are not being used equally with an over-reliance on one or two bulls.

Finally, if you are not confident about picking bulls, ask someone else to do it for you or just copy what someone who is skilled at it is doing.

This could be someone in the discussion group, or a neighbour with a really good herd of cows. Breeding is not everyone’s interest, but it shouldn’t be holding farmers back either.

Fertiliser

There is growing recognition of the importance of sulphur as a nutrient. In recent Teagasc experiments, grass growth increased by up to 37% where sulphur was applied along with nitrogen. It’s particularly important in light soils where sulphur deficiency is more prominent.

For grazing systems, the advice is to spread 15 units/acre of sulphur across April, May and June, so five units/acre per month. For first cut silage, the advice is to spread 10 to 15 units/acre and light soils will need another 10 units/acre for second cut. There is limited sulphur in slurry.

So when ordering fertiliser for the next few months make sure to take account of sulphur, which is now widely available with protected urea.