Rain is the limiting factor this week in Clara as we move into the summer months, with very dry ground and growth rates tailing off significantly over the past two weeks.

We might get a small drop of rain next weekend, but we will have to plan for some level of drought over the coming months if we don’t get a significant downpour soon.

We have increased meal feeding to 5kg for this week and we are grazing some paddocks of aftergrass that were earmarked for a second cut of silage.

This grass is a little stronger than ideal, but easier and cheaper than opening wraps for the moment. That will get us through this week. We will re-assess next week and see what rain has accumulated in the interim.

We have moved all of the heifer calves to the out-farm to decrease demand. Grazing the aftergrass also pulls this ground back into the rotation quicker than if left for silage.

These measures and the increased meal feeding will reduce our demand for grass to just under 40kg DM/ha, so we only need a growth rate of 40 to support the cows.

We are probably at around half of that this week, but a small amount of rain would lift us into a better place very quickly and get us out of trouble. The whole grazing platform was blanket spread with 20 units of nitrogen this week, so we are primed for take-off if and when the moisture comes.

If we avoid rain, we will open a silage pit next week and start feeding heavily until rain comes. We have enough surplus silage to get us through the summer, so we should be in a good enough place to get to the far side of any drought.

Out silage

The thought of feeding out silage is probably worse than the reality. If the worst comes to pass, we will feed silage at the feed rail rather than the paddock, but we will give them access to a paddock beside the yard to lie down rather than the cubicle shed.

On the out-farm, we should have enough grass available for youngstock for the next month or so.

We have carried a bit more surplus grass into the drought on this block. We will cut some of this grass for silage if possible, but will graze it if we have to. The calves are grazing the aftergrass on this block and the in-calf heifers will take out the heavier covers if necessary.

Breeding seems to have quietened down a lot this week. The heifers look very quiet, so hopefully we got a good strike to AI with them. We used a lot of sexed semen on these girls, so hopefully it works out.

The cows are also showing a lot less heats this week as we move into the third cycle of repeats. On current data, over 80% of the cows look to have held in the first six weeks of breeding. Hopefully we don’t get too many surprises from here on.

We have a small team of Friesian bulls out keeping an eye on things, with any cows that are alerting on the heat detection system also served with beef straws daily. We will finish up breeding around the end of the month and we will scan around the end of July.

Ash trees

Most of the rest of this month will be spent on maintenance and tidying up around the farm before the holiday season. We need to do a small bit of work on machinery, sheds, fencing, the water system and tidying up the workshop.

We also have to prune back some trees that are becoming dangerous. We have a lot of ash trees on the farm that are compromised with ash die-back. A significant number are on the roadside, so they will have to be tackled soon, before they cause any safety issues.

There is talk of support from the Government to tackle these trees, but at the speed that those decisions are made, we might be better off getting on with the job.