Grass growth has come back into the 40s this week for the first time since the spring. Our measuring farms grew an average of 47.5kg DM/ha over the last seven days. As nights get colder and days shorten, we can expect this downward trend to continue.

A brief break in the rain over last few days has seen some housed stock get back to grass and allowed for slight improvement in ground conditions in drier places. However, towards the north and west, getting grass into cattle remains a challenge and a lot of animals are indoors at this point. I know some farmers who have had cows housed for four weeks at this stage and have taken a big chunk from their silage.

For those who are still seriously grazing, there are two targets to keep in mind. Grass should be blowing in the wind on your farm now, with supply having peaked last week at 30-35 days’ worth of grass. There is little we can do to affect this situation now. If we are behind this target, but planning to house animals for finishing or wean cows to the shed in advance of a normal housing date, then there is no cause to panic around grass supply yet.

Obviously chemical fertiliser is not an option now, but even if it were, it would be very questionable whether or not we could travel without damaging ground.

Our second important target for consideration involves October closing. Profitability on livestock farms is driven by getting the most grass that we can into the diet. The feed value of grass is at its highest in spring but fields are bare on the majority of Irish livestock farms at the time.

By strategically closing up paddocks from early-October, we will ensure that there is grass there to eat in the spring, when weather allows us to eat it.

Every extra day we get outdoors at grass in the spring is worth €2.70 per head. Identify the paddocks that you want to go into first in the spring and graze these out starting from early-October. February grass is grown in October. Once we graze out these fields it’s important that we resist the temptation to go back in, no matter how good grass supply or ground conditions are in November.

Robert Abbott

Co Longford

System Suckler to weanling

Soil type Variable

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 661

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 34

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 31

Growth is beginning to decline as autumn is well and truly here. Ground is holding up well so hopefully we won’t get too much rain as I’m eager to extend my grazing season into November. My demand has been reduced as I’ve started weaning the early born spring calves. I decided to wean them indoors and currently they are on really good silage with their mothers on poorer fodder from the previous year as they dry-off. I won’t be creeping my weanlings yet as I’m happy with the thrive and they show no signs of checking even after weaning.

The reared calves are beginning to puck on grazing a reseeded paddock along with getting just under 1kg/meal/day. I will vaccinate them with closamectin.

I spread some fertiliser last week prior to the chemical fert deadline. I decided to go with 2 bags of 0-9-25/acre on any ground that is index 1 for P & K. Any ground that didn’t receive chemical fert will get an application of watery slurry before closing the paddock for spring.

Joe Healy

Co Meath

System Suckler to beef

Soil type Heavy clay

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 1566

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 35

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 59

Growth remained strong last week despite the recent spell of poor weather. The farm has a good cover of grass at present. The worry with the recent heavy rainfall is that ground conditions will deteriorate rapidly and I will not get to keep stock out as long as I would like to get covers grazed.

Cows are currently been grazed in 12-hour blocks to maximise grass utilisation and try and prevent any damage to paddocks. The majority of the farm got around 20 units of nitrogen over the last two weeks before the deadline, any of the high index paddocks got a half bag of urea per acre and the lower index paddocks got a bag of 18-6-12. Cows are been supplemented with high magnesium licks and during the cold nights last week, were supplemented with hay as a precaution for grass tetany. All weanlings were given their pneumonia vaccine last week. My last group of bulls are coming towards the end of their finishing phase and I hope to slaughter a few next week.

John Heslin

Derrypatrick Herd

System Suckler to beef

Soil type Mixed

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 900

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 42

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 53

Drainage has commenced this week across 2.5 acres of the farm. It is hoped the drainage of this 2.5 acres will reduce the water retention in 8.5 acres of the farm. This area was unable to be grazed prior to first cut silage this spring and is prone to water logging. Deep drains will be put in place with reseeding carried out next spring.

The final pregnancy scan for 2017 was carried out this week and we are happy with the results after 100% AI breeding. We achieved a 76% 6 week in-calf rate and 87% 12 week in-calf rate following a 12-week breeding season. All heifers conceived within 8 weeks of the breeding season with only 3 calving outside the first 6 weeks. There were 12 empty cows identified. No reproductive issue was detected and 3 were seen bulling within 10 days of completing the breeding season. Blood will be sampled from these animals to identify any possible issues. These cows will be fattened at grass this autumn and culled.

Dwayne Stanley

Co Tipperary

System Suckler to steer/calf

to beef

Soil type Variable

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 1,025

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 54

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 54

Reseeding was completed on 1 September on a 19-acre field. It received 3 bags of 10-10-20 and 3 tonne of lime per acre at sowing. We are fencing this into paddocks having installed water troughs earlier in the year. We hope to carry a high stocking rate on the reseeded ground next year. I plan to spray for post emergence weeds now once weather dries up using a mix of MCPA, Triad and Legumex.

Dairy calves are grazing ahead of suckler cows with spring born calves in a leader follower system. I may change this back to letting dairy-bred calves graze out the paddocks from now on as I am happy with the clean out they are achieving.

Scanning is to be completed next week and then I will decide on what to cull based on calving spread and weanling performance.

I have vaccinated autumn cows for leptospirosis and have 32 calves born from 31 cows. There are 13 cows to calve still.