Thankfully, almost all cattle are now at grass and, at the minute, have the sun on their backs.

Farm cover has almost doubled in the past two weeks and achieved a growth rate of 41kg DM/ha.

The last of the cows only went to grass at the end of last week and are still grazing silage ground.

I would like to have all stock removed from silage ground at this stage, but, unfortunately, the late turnout and previously low farm cover have not allowed this to happen.

Too late for May cut

I will probably not graze all of the silage ground as normal, as it will leave me too late to allow for a late-May silage cut.

All but three cows were scanned before turn-out. These three were the last three to calf, were never AI-ed and weren’t long enough with the bull to be showing in-calf.

Of the cows scanned, only one scanned empty, which was very satisfying.

Stock bull conundrum

This means that 88% of the herd this year are in-calf to AI sires, the highest number I’ve ever had.

It does make me wonder if it makes sense keeping a bull to inseminate such a small number of cows, but, then again, if he wasn’t there, I’d still be watching three cows for heat detection and, to be honest, a couple of months of that is enough for anyone! The novelty soon wears off!

Silage ground

All silage ground at this stage has received two bags of 18:6:12 plus sulphur, as well as 2,000gal of slurry and half a bag of urea earlier on.

As I have already said, some of it will have been grazed and some not. I’m assuming one third of the urea will still be available on the grazed area.

All grazing ground has received one bag of 18:6:12 plus sulphur per acre and the half-bag of urea earlier on.

The response to urea on the ground that received urea only was disappointing.

Any ground that received slurry and urea grew well - I suppose indicating a phosphorous and potassium deficiency.

Silage ground would really need sprayed for docks this year or at least some of it.

Most of it has not been sprayed since 2016 and is still not that bad. It was sprayed back then with Forefront and it has lasted well.

It’s an expensive spray, but, assuming you get you timing right, it’s well worth the money.

Only having to use herbicides every five years has also got to be better for the environment.