Sunday is 1 November and at this stage 70% of the farm should be closed up. For some farms this may be closer to 100% especially on heavy soils or where growth slowed down the last month. The main objective now is to have grass for the spring.

For those hoping to extend out the grazing season into late November it is important to lower demand. Graze with priority stock. For the dairy farmer this will be cows that are still milking well. For the beef animals or young dairy stock you are looking at animals that are behind their target weight or growing stock that need a greater average daily gain.

Looking at your grass budget and seeing if you’re going to hit your closing average farm cover is the best way to determine whether you should keep grazing or close up your farm.

For those not recording your measurements or familiar with these targets, looking at the heaviest paddock on the farm can be a good indicator.

So what’s the highest grass cover you want to carry across the winter? Firstly this depends on how much grass your farm can grow in December and January.

Farms that have good growth over the winter averaging 5kg/day will add 300kg DM/ha, whereas other farms may only grow 2.5kg day over the same period, only adding 150kg DM/ha.

So with that in mind ideally the heaviest cover on the farm on 1 December should be around 1,500kg/ha or 1,650kg/ha. This will give you a cover of around 1,800kg/ha on 1 February and 2,200kg/ha by grazing on 1 March.

If we take this back one more step, any paddock with a grass cover of greater than 1,200kg/ha this week should be considered for grazing.